Happy Thanksgivin'

We had a nice quiet holiday over here. Turkey, GB casserole, SP casserole, mashed P, stuffing, gravy (made from scratch). All made by moi after I came home from work while Kimm painted over at a neighbors. I had it ready and waiting when she came home. And it was Tasty! Ain't I a good wife?

This video was posted on another blog I read. Thought I'd share it in case you hadn't seen it. Pretty funny stuff.

Happy holiday!

Waking Up At 5AM

I never get to go to shows anymore. Here's my good pals Browntown West doing Hair of The Dog. They're playing at my favorite bar The Eagle on Wednesday night. I hate missing shows.

She's The Reason Why

Here's Kimm, B. Mom and myself on election night in Cabo San Jose, Mexico. This is the restaurant we were at when we found out that O had won! We all were very happy and proceded to get exceedingly drunk.

Mexico was nice.

I've finally gotten all my shit caught up. Including reading all my daily blogs. Which are many these days.

Very excited about O.

Not so very excited about Prop 8.

Very VERY blissed out about working four 10 hour days a week and having 3 days off Every Weeked!!!!!

Why doesn't every one do that schedule?

Not happy at all about more bad news for my unfortunate neighbors.

Why shouldn't I get a gun?

Too much extreme happiness and sadness this year. ..Is that how it is for everyone?

October Nights

Here's my house on a typical October Saturday. October weather in the Bay Area translates to perfectness....

Here's 3 of my 4 doggies after their once a month afternoon baths. Monroe on rug.

Mills (black and white).

Jasper (the other adorable one).

Sunset from our Dutch door we put in at the beginning of the year. It looks out onto the Bay. Across said bay is SF. So....out our front door, we watch the sun set over SF thru our neighbors trees.

Here's the cottage in our back yard that we worked on today.

We put up these 3 windows today after MANY years.

5?

This is the view we look out on from inside of our front door. Check out the squirrel running across the phone line on the left.

Close up of sunset from front door.

Me happy!

MARRIAGE DAY

Yeah we did it! Wednesday Oct. 22nd at 1:00 in San Francisco City Hall.

A gorgeous hot day in SF and City Hall was awesome!

My mom C. was the witness and we also brought 4 close friends along.

Later that night we had a reception at our friend N.'s house in SF with about 25 people. It was really wonderful. Lots of food, drinks, LOVE and good friends!

Our beautiful cake which Kimm made said Kimistry.

This Year On My Vacation.....

Kimm and I celebrated our birthdays last week by camping at a little lake in the Sierra's called Pinecrest Lake. It's near Sonora where our friends M and P live. So we also got to spend a bit of time with them which is always fantastic!

We'd never been camping there before and it's beautiful! But not so good for the dogs. Lots of sap on the ground from all the pine trees. Lots of globby, sappy, sticky spots on doggies which later I cut out with scissors.

But the hike around the lake is AMAZING! 4.2 miles of absolute gorgeous wonderment! And besides us there were only about 15 other people in the whole park--nice.

I love camping the last week of September. Unless it rains.

Tonite I'm going to jam with my old band. We haven't played together in 4 months! I can't wait to hear about all the trouble my young, single guitar player has been getting into. If any of you know him you know it's always a treat! I suppose getting older means I now have to live vicariously through my younger and more dicey friends. Which is O.K. because I'm too tired anymore at the end of the day.

SONSEED

If this song is not playing in your head for weeks there's something wrong with you.

Sorry I had to steal it from you C.

EVERYONE has to see this. Pass it on.

Broken Sewer Lines SUCK

This is what we had fun doing a couple of weeks ago. I came home from walking the dogs and saw raw sewage on the side walk in front of our house that had spewed up from behind a wooden retaining wall. I could tell it was our raw sewage from all the tampons. Nice!
So we started digging. First removing the wooden retaining wall then jack hammering the old cement retaining wall that the previous owners had hidden behind the newer wooden one. Then LOTS of digging and SURPRISE! the old cement retaining wall had slowly sunk upon and crushed the old clay sewer line. Luckily our pal Cliff (pictured here next to large semi cab.) could lend us his jack hammer which helped us immensely!
After finding the crushed line and hammering up the square of sidewalk above the line. We replaced the old clay pipe with new ABS plastic. Gotta love plastic sometimes! We buried the new line. Poured the new sidewalk and called it done. I won't tell you what we really called it but you can imagine.
But we fixed our sewer lateral for under $250 dollars. Pretty good considering it could have cost us $3000 if we had called someone in to do it for us.
WOO HOO! Girl Power (+ Cliffs Jack Hammer)!

Slogans

This is probably one of the best slogans ever! Better than 'Pray gay away' for sure.

Seriously tho' that pit bull dressed like a bank teller scares me.

We can't let them win...Tell your friends!

I'm Back

It's been a month since I was last here.

Kimm and I needed a mental health break so we went to my mom's in Redding. This picture was taken in the park. They have a lot of nice art in that park. Pretty good step up for Redding.

My neighbor is doing exceptionally well. Or so it is on the outside. They have one of the perpetrators in custody. Hopefully he'll rat out the other one--but probably only for a plea deal. They are going to charge him with, among other things, attempted murder. We're really happy about that.

So much has happened in a month I'm not sure where to begin....

*Had my first mammogram and was called back for more pictures. Which lead to a surgical biopsy. Luckily I am non-cancerous! The upside of all that was that it took my mind off my neighbor/hood's problems for awhile. Although I have to say--biopsy's hurt. I still have a painful and bruised boob.

*Had a really nice time in Redding. Although it was 115 degrees. We drove up there the day after my biopsy. Half way up I got the call from my doctor that I was all clear. That made for a really nice visit. Got to see our good friends C and S. As well as spend a lot of good time with my mom.

*Kimm put up a beautiful gate in the front yard closing off our yard entirely to anyone on the street.

*We've nearly finished our new front steps.

*Kimm rounded up four used double pane wooden windows in perfect shape at our awesome reuse store here in Oakland. All four for $60. (If anyone knows how much wooden double pane windows cost you are shitting your pants right now--I know we are)! Three of them will be for the cottage in the back yard and one for our bathroom.

*We're close to finishing our new fireplace hearth. Now we just need to do some tiling which we'll do after we buy and install a fireplace insert. We've never had any source of heat during our temperate Bay Area winters. But it would be nice to have something instead of wearing sweaters and coats every night as we watch TV.

It's good to have projects when you're in fear mode. Keeps your mind busy. We've done more work just recently on the house then we've done in the past 7 years. I'll be posting pictures of all the work in the next few posts.

*Kimm officiated at our good friends N and M's wedding last week-- It was a stellar performance and a wonderful wedding!

*And maybe most importantly, Kimm and I have decided to get married in September. Since we're short on cash we're going to wait on having a reception until after the holidays. Maybe not even until next spring. But we know we've got to get married before November. We've heard that even if they pass the state amendment against gay marriage that it might be very difficult to annul any of the marriages performed between May and Nov 08'. So we're kind of in a hurry.

And lastly.....who else saw Barak's acceptance speech last night at the Dem. Nat. Con?

Kind of inspiring? Hell Yeah!

GO BARAK!!!!!!!!

Dealing With It

I didn't mention a couple of weeks back about Kimm's employee being mugged at a house they were working at in our neighborhood. Two guys with a gun. Luckily he wasn't hurt and only lost his Stanley knife and wallet with a small amount of money in it.

The two guys who robbed him ran when they saw Kimm walk up our neighbors driveway to see what was going on.

Then yesterday morning another neighbor and very good friend was robbed, beaten and assaulted after her husband left for work. Two guys with a gun and hammer. I'm not going to give brutal details but I woke up yesterday to cop cars and lots of questions of did we see anything. We hadn't. We didn't hear a thing. And our dogs and the dog in the house on the other side of them didn't hear anything so they didn't bark. It's funny how such violent acts can be so quiet. She's lucky she even lived through it.
Hours later after all the cops had left, my neighbors came home from the hospital to their wrecked home. Every piece of broken glass and wood, bent frames of lamps, clothes scattered everywhere, book shelves tipped over and of course lots of blood. Everything left the way it was when they finished taking what they wanted, beating her and running out leaving the door open. It's hard to think of living through that and then having to come home from the hospital to see it. It's something I never thought about.
Anyway, I went over soon after they arrived and helped clean up. It was honestly the hardest thing I've ever done. But I kept remembering something my friend Colleen used to say many years ago--'Deal with it'.
I knew as scared as I was to see and deal with the aftermath it didn't compare to how bad she was feeling, or her husband. I cleaned up the worst of it. He helped.
Soon after we finished cleaning, Kimm came home from her dentist appointment and did a dump run to get rid of their bed and all the collected trash. Later on she would install new locks on their front door while I made them lasagna.
I like to think of myself as a good liberal/anarchist. But when something like this happens it just strengthens my belief in a death penalty. I know that's a bad word amongst most of my fellow left thinkers. But since I was a young kid and another friend of mine was raped and murdered along with her mother I've had strong feelings about what should happen to people who have no regard for life. Sometimes I teeter. Maybe forgiveness is the greatest gift. I do believe that's true but I also think victims have the right to NOT forgive. Someone who's willingly and with a smile scared your life in a way you'll never recover from. Why should those people be allowed to keep breathing.
I don't know.
Right now I'm feeling pretty strongly in favor.
A detective just left their home. And we heard that the police found her computer and bag. They've just left in her mothers rental car. Hopefully they're driving to the police station to identify a suspect.

I also want to point out that our neighborhood is not a bad place. (although Jan I know you disagree). We live in a high density urban area. The economy the way it is doesn't help. I know shit can happen anywhere. (Two little girls shot and killed on that country road in Idaho).
Desperation makes people do all kinds of things. Like mugging someone.
And then there's just plain evil. Like what happened next door.

Just Another Picture Of The Runaways...

I just came across this on the web.

I'm on one of my Runaway tribute band obsessions...Why can't I find more of me???

How I wish I could look this good in latex.

Old Gals

It's good this picture is far away for the sake of all of you.

Kimm and I have celebrated our 12th year together this past month. This picture was taken on our last camping trip to Sly Park in June.

We're starting to look like two old lesbians.

Oh well, it can't be helped. Hopefully we'll still be cool to someone..somewhere...

If not fkem!

Wayne Billy

Here's my man Jesse circa 85/86? He's my oldest and most dearest pal. This photo was taken in his house when he was living in SF down in the Sunset District while he want to the Art Institute.

Jesse has just proved yet again to me that he is THE coolest guy in the room.

He recorded a CD under the name Wayne Billy. It's so fucking awesome! I will most definately be playing it if any of you come to visit me this summer.

He is such an Amazing guitarist. I miss jamming with him very, very much!

Happy Birthday To My Old Little Sister

Happy Birthday to my little sister K. Who is 40 years old today. We're pictured here circa 73' maybe 74'. With us is Crawley the disposable turtle. I think we had about 10 or so of those turtles. All replacing the one before who would die in the space of about 2 weeks. All named Crawley.

Hopefully your getting better presents these days K.

Have a tremendous day! Wish I could be there in Happy Valley to give you a bad time.

And if it helps just remember that I'll always be older.

Year Number Six

Year Number six. Kris has been gone for 6 years. When I hear this song the hair stands up Everywhere! I didn't post on the day of the day. I actually had a party on that day and I figured Kris would have wanted it that way. We used to listen to this song as it was the theme song for New Wave Theatre on Night Flight on the USA Network back in the 80's. We would watch it in the dark in my living room in Redding at my parents house. Good Memories..

The Blasters rock!

So Sick, So F@^&%!!!

Kimm and I are SSSOOOO SICK! There is probably nothing worse than being sick at the most important part of the year (June, ie.... Dyke March, Pride, Soofi visit). Here are Kimm and I Beginning sickness. We have since this moment...left the Dyke march (we have to be sick for that people!) And we didn't even make it to the Pride Parade and celebration. AND Charo was there so you can BETTER believe that we are BUMMED about that! I remember watching Charo when I was like 10 and I'm 41 now so how old is this gal? My friend Ilhan says that she Officially changed her age. I'd like to do that myself. I HATE BEING SICK! SINUS INFECTIONS SUCK!!!

Kimm Just introduced me to the Neti Pot. I didn't think I could do it. But I've managed to pull it off.

If I'm ever sick again this part of the year just SHOOT ME!

Thank God Kimm is just as sick as me. And vice-a-versa or we'd be at each others throats!!!!!

Fuck Sickness in June!!!

June Is A Whirlwind

Here is my good friend I. who I never see enough of. He used to play with me in my first SF band Yusakuta back in the 90's (Ahh the 90's...Good Times Good Times).
This picture was taken in my back yard last weekend at a party thrown for my pals from Chicago. We had about 50 people at my house and I was as sick as a _____! I'd caught some summer cold from somewhere and could barely even speak. But I managed to make it through.
Earlier in the week my band Hazy reunited at a friends house in SF to jam. That was fun--and possibly where I got sick..(note to self, never share a bottle of bushmills with parents of small children....I have no immunity against kid germs). But it was worth the sickness C.J. and M.!
This month Kimm and I have been together for 12 years. And yes we will get married before November. Most lawyers say that even if it is overturned they won't be able to ignore the marriage licences issued before.
This weekend is Pride but the best day of the year for us is the Saturday before which is always the Dyke March. Thousands of girls in Delores park!!! We've got some friends coming down from Redding to stay and go with us. Can't wait for all the good sights! Hopefully I won't be dealing with gallons of snot as I am now. Pray for me.

Summer Fun

Yes, very silly...

My boy C. bought these Groucho glasses for us all to wear on our camping trip. They ended up to be quite entertaining as the night wore on with much imbibment.

Tonite, along with my boy C., my old band Hazy will reunite to jam through our 20+ earth shattering original songs. Our former singer and all around hot sexpot/speach therapist is back in town with her lovely family for a visit. She and the husband and kiddies moved to Chicago awhile back. When they make their yearly visit we all drop what we are doing and party like the pigs we are.

Afterwards there is talk of going to Jello Biafra's 50th birthday party at the Great American where the Melvins are playing a set.

All this and today Gay Marriage is LEGAL in CA! What a wonderful day this has turned out to be. I hope I can take it all in and remember it tomorrow.

Camping Near The River

If

If you can put all these pictures together in your mind that was the sight of our swimming hole at a fork of the Consumnes River. We had to scramble over rocks and poison oak and around and under trees to get there but it is heaven!

This river is one of the reasons we go camping at Sly Park a couple of times every year. We brought along 8 friends for 3 days. Lotsa fun! Lotsa drinking! Lotsa food! Never enough swimming..

Summers here!

Click on the pictures to get the fullest effect.