unusual things in our home

If you were to visit our home you might see some unusual things. Here are a few that I noticed in the last few days. First are the handcuffs on the handle of the door of the oven. No, we're not into BDSM (and even if we were, not in the kitchen), they belong to my son Leo. I have no idea why he put them on the oven, but I often don't understand why he does what he does. Next you might notice the tooth sitting on a paper towel on my dresser. Leo pulled out another tooth last night, his seventh he thinks. We now owe him $5 he reminded me today. We never did the tooth fairy fantasy, so we just give him $5 per tooth. The next unusual thing would be the house key that was found in a container of leftover cake. It is my son's house key, which he couldn't find for a while. I asked why it was with the cake and he responded "I don't know, I lost it." OK, but why put it with the cake in the first place? No answer to that.

Next you might notice the vomit on the Christmas tree skirt. This can't be blamed on Leo but on our cat Miss Otis (named after the Cole Porter song). Christopher noticed it first and commented on it, so I decided if he saw it first he should clean it up. Petty, I know, but why talk about it if you don't take care of it?

The last somewhat bizarre thing you might see is a grape on our bedroom floor. Leo apparently had grapes at school and put a few in his pants pocket to eat later. Of course then forgot about them and didn't eat them or take them out of his pocket. Somehow one grape made it through the washer and dryer, and when he picked the pants up and put them on his shoulder before putting them on the grape fell out. Well, he must inherit that from Christopher, who regularly leaves his Chapstick in his pants pockets. They melt in the dryer but thankfully don't make a mess.

I'm ashamed of my city and university

I live in Davis, California and did graduate studies at UC Davis. UC Davis has been in the news lately for the infamous pepper spraying of students for peacefully protesting and refusing to leave. You may have heard about this or seen the video. I haven't been able to watch the video. This is so unlike Davis and UC Davis. But the administration must feel threatened by protesters and overreacted. UC Davis has a history of permitting protests, so what happened this time? The chancellor of UCD is Greek, and according to a fellow Greek professor, Greece has a long history of accepting student protests, so she should understand that students protest and that's normal. A violent reaction to a non-violent protest is outrageous. In the 1960s during the student protests throughout the country, the chancellor at that time met with the students, talked with them, arranged meetings to hear their grievances and never over-reacted. I signed a petition asking the chancellor to resign and I encourage others to sign one as well.

another step on Prop 8

Today the California State Supreme Court ruled that the backers of Prop 8 do have state standing to defend Prop 8 in court. So the case goes back to the Ninth Circuit court for a hearing on December 8. As I understand it, the judges will decide if the backers of Prop 8 have federal standing and will also decide on the merits of the case. Legal matters seem to take forever.

"Leo has had a busy day today."

That was how the lady working the desk in the principal's office in Leo's school greeted Christopher when he went to pick Leo up yesterday. (He was picking Leo up for an appointment, and the school policy is that the parent goes to the principal's office and the staff call the classroom to have the child sent to the office.) As all parents would when hearing that comment from the school office, Christopher braced himself for bad news, thinking "What has he done?" Well, it turns out that it wasn't anything bad at all. Leo had dragged one of the ladies from the cafeteria to the principal's office with him and wanted to complain about the choices in the cafeteria. (How did he convince the "lunch lady" as he calls her to come with him? He is persuasive though.) He wants to bring back the pesto pasta salad that he says all the kids like and get rid of some onion dish that has replaced it. So the office told him to start a petition to change the lunch options and have others sign it, which he did. He told me that he had 60 kids sign the petition, while Christopher says that he only saw 25 signatures on the petition. Either way, the office staff, Christopher and I are all proud of his determination. I encourage him to change the world when he can. Maybe he is an activist. Will I soon see him joining Occupy Wall Street?

Respect for Marriage Act

Yesterday the US Senate's Judiciary Committee approved the Respect for Marriage Act, which will repeal the section of the inappropriately named Defense of Marriage Act that prevents the federal government from recognizing valid same sex marriages. It was a 10 to 8 party line vote in the committee, with the Democrats voting for it and the Republicans opposed. I am proud that Dianne Feinstein of California sponsored the bill. The arguments that the Republicans made were offensive and lame. The bill will probably not come up for a vote in the full Senate, but this is a positive step. I want my government to acknowledge my marriage.

Also in the elections on Tuesday in a state Senate race in Iowa the Democrat won, thus continuing the Democratic control of the chamber. This is important because the majority leader, Mike Gronstal, has promised not to allow the Constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality to come to a vote while he is the majority leader.

On a personal note, my son Leo advanced from level 6 to level 7 in his swim lessons. In this level he will learn the butterfly. I'm proud of his accomplishment, since he now swims better than I do.

I also didn't realize how long it had been since I posted here. I'll try to check in more often.

Leo returns, Don't Ask Don't Tell leaves

I talked with my husband Christopher the other day about my blog. He asked that I remove our son's name and use a pseudonym again. Apparently internet security and safety recommendations are to not use children's names. So I changed his name in a post from a while back to Leo. Jay, I couldn't remove Leo's true name from your post without removing the entire post so I had to delete your comment. Sorry.

On other topics, Don't Ask, Don't Tell ended yesterday. It is a big step. I dated a few guys who were in the military when I was younger, and it wasn't fun to have to hide when we went out. One more brick removed from the wall of inequality for gays and lesbians in this country.

Prop 8, again

I watched the recording of the California Supreme Court's recent hearing on Prop 8, the state Constitutional amendment that outlawed same sex marriages. The legal issue this time is a question from the United States Ninth Circuit court asking if under California law the proponents of Prop 8 can defend the law in court since the governor and state attorney general said that Prop 8 was unconstitutional and refused to defend it. It was interesting to watch. The Prop 8 proponents argue that if they are unable to defend propositions the governor and attorney general can essentially nullify a law in federal court by refusing to defend it. I can see their point, and I think that the court will agree with them. But in my opinion the legal argument by Ted Olson, the anti-Prop 8 lawyer, was much better. The California Constitution specifically says that the people have legislative power through the initiative process to propose and pass laws, as happened with Prop 8, but there is no executive branch power to defend the law in court. That power is expressly given only to the governor and attorney general. Olson argued that giving that power to the proponents would violate the separation of powers in the Constitution. It will be interesting to see what the court decides. Ultimately, even if the court says that the proponents do have "standing" to defend the law under California law, that does not mean that the meet the federal standards to defend it in federal court. If they do not have standing, Prop 8 would be unconstitutional and marriage equality would return to California. That would be great, but I really want all Americans to have marriage equality. My best case scenario would be for this case to reach the US Supreme Court and have Prop 8 and all laws that forbid marriage equality declared unconstitutional. Then I might feel like a full citizen with all the rights that other Americans have.