Toot, Toot

It is a long southern tradition for woman to make delicious fare and then to make apologies for its appearance or taste. Normally I follow this tradition to a tee, as I, too, feel the need for total perfection in my kitchen and its output. When I signed up to make Angie and Jon's wedding and groom's cakes I expected to be doing a lot of apologizing...and I expected to have legitimate reasons for doing so.

For those of you like me who have never constructed a wedding cake it not only requires more baking than you can imagine (9 hours!!) but it is actually quite the architectural feat setting it up. So I'm bucking the tradition and tooting my own horn this time because I have to say I'm pretty proud of how both cakes turned out.

Jon's Groom's Cake "Dig"...complete with mini dinosaur bones...toot, toot.

No Marriage is complete without a trip to the Clermont

Angie's bachelorette was this Saturday. After bbq and then darts we headed to the most sacred of Atlanta landmarks...The Clermont Lounge.

Maybe it is the PBR in a can, the feeling that if you touch anything you will walk out with crabs, a bathroom that will test your ability to hold your bladder beyond your wildest dreams or the strippers who are either over 65, weigh over 250lbs or have track marks up and down their arms...there is just something magical about the Clermont that cements your relationship and makes you all the more grateful for your pending marriage.

Bellsouth, Cingular, AT&T...idiots no matter what they call themselves

So I have spent 4, count them 4, hours on the internet and phone today attempting to get my crackberry to receive emails again. 4 hours wasted talking to some moron named "Craig" whose final answer to me was that their server was down and he had no ETA on when it would be back up and maybe, just maybe, that was why I wasn't getting my emails.

I used to handle our business account with AT&T and have to say this is not the first time they have sucked hours out of my life and unfortunately I am confident it will not be the last.

Usually I stand against violence...

I am a bit of a freak about tomatoes. Plucking them from my grandmother's garden, as a child I would literally eat them like an apple. You could not leave my grandmother's house without taking a grocery sack full so when not there I had to look no further than my own kitchen window sill to find a delicious homegrown tomato.

For people who didn't have this luxury I'm sure they would be fine with tomatoes purchased at a grocery store. They may even rave about those bought at the Farmer's Market. But, rest assured nothing compares to tomatoes grown at home, even those that say "vine ripened". I've bought them all and I can say with confidence that they're all crap.

I hate these tomatoes so much that I choose not to eat them at all than be subjected to their inferiority. Sure I'll eat tomatoes at restaurants. There is even a seafood place in Florida that has the closest I've ever tasted to homegrown...but again, just not quite there.

Last year I begged the BFF to grow tomatoes. After much persuading he did grow some and had quite the harvest, so I hear. Although I did pluck a few of his sweet cherry tomatoes the neighbors made off with the real loot before I even had one!

This year I'm taking it into my own hands and although I had to plant it in a pot to place on my back porch, the only place I get sun, I have planted a tomato plant. A German Beauty Heirloom tomato to be exact.

You may have noticed the snake curled around my little German beauty...it is actually a cobra.

I put this guy there under the advise of the BFF to ward off the squirrels. Our oak tree is currently home to over 10 squirrel nests and who knows how many of the wretched little creatures who's seemingly only purpose in life is to dig up my plants.

For a few weeks my little cobra soldier has done the job. It is the first time I have ever planted anything that I didn't come to find dug up by those rats in cute costumes.

Last week I came out to find a pansy in a neighboring pot completely dug out. Now they had dug in the pansies back when I planted them months ago. But after finding that I did not actually use pecans as fertilizer they had moved on. Why now? Could they truly be so cunning to actually test the cobra, which I move daily to keep up the life-like effect?!?

The answer is YES. The next day they had dug in the tomato pot. My once terrifying cobra was found tossed about and lying belly up...defeated.

I found a couple of days ago that I now have flowers on my tomato plant. I'm no horticulturist but I believe those small blooms will eventually become the delicious tomatoes I so desire. And I'll be damned if the squirrel army is going to deny me of the summer joy I miss so much.

I need a plan and fast. Currently I'm toying with electric wire, rat poison, an air pistol or a fake owl. All of which the wife is adamantly against. For now I just try to run them down in my car.

I may have lost this one battle but the war will rage on and to the victor will go the spoils...the sweet, sweet, sun-ripened spoils.

Day One...

First day of unemployment…from the looks of the list I created for myself I have to say I’m thinking office work, although mentally taxing, may be a little less physically demanding.

BTW-Going to the grocery store on Monday mornings is a whole different experience than going on the weekend with the rest of the world. I didn't curse under my breath at one person! Incredible.

Still relevant today...

Okay, so I was cleaning out files on my work laptop and found the blog below. I am guessing I typed it to post of Myspace but it never happened...better late than never I guess.

I don’t believe there is any real shock value in the fact that I believe that the right to wed should be one afforded to all consenting adults who wish to commit their lives to one another inclusive of all the legal rights and protections that come along with it.

It enrages me to no limit that I am treated as a second class citizen and that my marriage to my Wife is used as a scare tactic to get uneducated yokels out of their caves and into the voting booths to cast their ballot for whatever hate-monger is running for office.

So with that out there, time to blog what I came to blog about…

A while back some friends and I were out to dinner. One friend had the revelation that the Wife and I were the only married homos she knew. She and I started discussing why that was. I had quite a few cocktails that evening and can’t remember what we came up with but I’ve not stopped thinking about this since then.

I know other married gay couples, and when I say married I mean they held a ceremony committing themselves to one another in front of witnesses and their respective Gods. Some ceremonies were small others were on a grander scale, hell I’ll even count the one who didn’t really have an actually ceremony but in a private moment exchanged words of commitments and rings and had a surprise party afterwards to celebrate. So that makes 4 couples counting us. 4 out of all of our friends, their friends, their friends’ friends, etc. 4 out of every single homo I know.

Why is that? I know plenty of committed couples, too many to even count. So why is it that so few of them are married? I recently heard about another long term couple’s relationship biting the dust. 7 years together and it has ended. It makes me sad for them on so many levels. It seems I’ve witnessed a lot of these sorts of break-ups over the past couple of years. Couples with anywhere from 2 to 7 years together ending their relationships and moving on.

99% of them cohabitated and lived their life as a married couple but in reality none of them were married. Don’t get me wrong, they had deep commitments and ones that I respected and thought were life-long, but none of them took that final step.

When one of the couples went their separate ways one of our mutual (and straight) friends asked me if I thought it ended because they weren’t married. “Don’t you think that kind of commitment keeps people together?” I couldn’t help but think yes.

I do believe that marriage is a commitment stronger than any other in this world. It is the start of a family even if that family never grows any larger. Is there a social unit stronger than the family?

Look, I know marriages end. I know that the society in which we live in thinks it okay to turn marriage into a game show where two total strangers tie the knot. I also know a lot of people marry someone because it is expected of them by their family or social circle. But lets face it, for gay couples it is different. We get married in spite of what our families or our society says. We have those ceremonies even if only one freaking state out of 50 will legally recognize it.

Now granted, I’ve only been married a couple of years but I can tell you that after living with this woman for 6 years that the past 2 have by far been the best. Not because we’ve gotten along any better or seen eye to eye more often. If anything, picking out wedding pictures and paying for them can take you to whole new levels of frustration.

The reason these years have been better has been because we are married. Because we are a family and we now have a tie that binds us to one another through the wonderful, the trying and the seemingly impossible.

The morning after our wedding a woman told me “You’re going to love marriage, it’s just a great place to be.” I just hope for all my gay friends that they don’t give up on the dream of getting married, of taking that final step and getting to that truly amazing place that marriage takes you.

I would like to say that since writing this we now know one more married couple and have 2 sets of gay friends that are engaged and are planning a ceremony...things are looking up. Or maybe I just need to be more patient.

8 days and counting

8 more days left of my hellish job...looking forward to catching up on life.

Still selling lemons to Pepsi...

So the wife had another meeting today and it looks like we are stuck with a January departure. There is a slim chance that they could need her bean counting skills before then but as we've had the rug jerked out from under us before, we're not getting our hopes up.

4 more weeks of employment...so in a month I should be blogging quite regularly.

When life gives you lemons maybe you should sell them to Pepsi for more 7up production...

So I don’t think many have been checking out our blog quite yet but for those who do, we got some pretty devastating news on Wednesday regarding our departure.

Turns out that the "powers that be" are attempting to fill available spaces in the international rotation with non-Americans…who even with the falling dollar are much cheaper to hire. So we’ve pretty much been officially pushed back to January ‘09.

Of course this changes our plans dramatically and puts a completely different spin on my leaving my job on April 4th…especially considering my position has been filled. Good times.

I’m a true believer in everything happening for a reason and although my faith is being tested I’m sure it will all work out for the best in the end.

Now if anyone hears of any consultant or short-term executive property management needs just let me know…otherwise I will continue training Gert in interpretive dance and our tour of Ponce De Leon corners and Piedmont Park should begin around April 5th. Keep an eye out for flyers and tell friends!

What's in a name? A bunch of hassle...that's what.

Almost 2 years after our marriage we finally made the move to share a surname. As always R&H were ahead of us and had gone through the legal mumbo-jumbo just a few months earlier and were able to lay it all out for us.

Sounded easy enough...file a petition, run an ad for 4 weeks then the judge should sign off and ta-da...you've got a new last name.

Everything seemed to be going as planned. I received all the paperwork from the courts and newspaper regarding my petition and ad...and earlier than expected I received a court hearing date of January 25th.

The 25th rolls around and I head on downtown to get myself a new last name. Or so I thought. After sitting in the courtroom for 2 hours the bailiff (who I don't actually think is called that, they are actually Sheriffs, guess my years of People's Court did not pay off) asks all "name changes" to go out into the hall. In the hall we are all asked to confirm we have the final affidavit from the newspaper confirming our ad has run for 4 weeks. Panicky I tell the woman I don't have this document. No problem she says...the Fulton Daily Report is just a block away...all I have to do is go there and get a copy. She rattles off directions and reminds me to be quick about it as I should not waste the Judge's time.

Okay, for those of you who know me, you know my choice of footwear is not exactly dependent on comfort...for those of you who know me well, you know I may have the worst sense of direction possible. Lets just say the odds were stacked against me.

After walking 3 blocks in the wrong direction me and my throbbing feet finally made it to the newspaper...where I was told that I couldn't have this affidavit until Monday. Through the tears welling up in my eyes I could see that this woman meant what she said and my debating skills would be lost on her. I leave defeated and start heading back to my car, until I remember that I have to go back to court where I am sure to found guilty of wasting a Judge's time. I hobble back to the courthouse where the Sheriff informed I could come back on Monday and they would "work me in".

Monday morning I head back downtown to get myself a new name...go to the newspaper, get my paperwork and up to Courtroom 4C where I sit...and sit...and sit. The court opened at 9am, it was now getting close to 12pm and as much fun as I was having trying to guess what crimes the people sitting all around me were going to be called up for I was getting nervous that the new name was not going to happen.

I have never spent any time in a courtroom but quickly learned that your only choice is to sit down and be quiet. If you don't have an attorney there is no one to ask what is going on or when you are going to be called. One woman got thrown out of the courtroom for refusing to spit out her gum and don't even think about standing up unless you want the entire courtroom to stop and stare at you as the Sheriff bellows out "TAKE A SEAT SIR/MADAM, TAKE A SEAT".

When the judge annouced at 12 that they would be in recess until 1:30 I got up the courage to approach the Sheriff who I had spoken with on Friday. She was very kind and said she would ask the Judge to see me in chambers so I wouldn't have to wait but not to count on it. 30 minutes later she came back I was taken to the judge's office.

The judge's secretary told me she would take my paperwork back but that the judge may need to speak to me. As I sit there waiting I have to admit I was nervous. I had been watching this judge for two days and he didn't mess around. On Friday he had told a woman who was pleading for her boyfriend's rape charge to be dropped so he could get out on bail that it was his photo that was kept on file at the AJC and if he let this guy out and he killed her it would be his "picture that would be in the paper and she'd be dead" and he didn't want his picture in the paper. Just that morning he told the DA that of course he didn't want to talk to the victim of an employee theft case because obviously if she hadn't noticed that her office manager had stolen over $650k over a ten year period she was a "complete idiot".

Luckily he signed off without the need to speak to me and I left the Fulton County Courthouse with a feeling of relief, a strong need to take a shower and finally my new name.

I'll say the DMV went a lot faster and the social security office took me only 40 minutes thanks to a lazy employee who was calling all the easy cases up to his window...although I was struck with that same strong need to take a shower after leaving.

I've applied for my new passport and am slowly but surely working through the list of bank accounts, credit cards, memberships, etc to officially shed myself of the old and in all aspects of my life become MAV.