This is going to land me in hot water

I already voted. I did so before the 3rd debate. But the truth is, there was no way I was going to change my vote. Which probably makes me one of those ideologues that are so far left or so far right they can't change, one of Romney's 47 percent. In case you're wondering, I'm left leaning. I am not insulted by being called a tax and spend democrat.

But what I am is a liberal Catholic.

A couple of days ago, I posted on my Facebook that I voted for the marriage equality law to go into effect. Almost immediately I got a long and heartfelt missive from a dear friend who is a conservative Catholic. He's also incidentally my confirmation counselor. It was an almost painful letter to read because it was so obviously written with love and caring. He told me how he was praying for me and that he felt like he had been derelict in his duties. As you could likely predict, there were arguments against homosexuality and how we cannot allow marriage equality.

And it pained me to read because I already knew that I wouldn't change my mind. That his position and by extension the church's position was dissonant with what I knew was true.

I really think that if you lead with compassion, you are rarely wrong. So while the thing my loving and compassionate faith wants me to do is to enforce religious beliefs on the population at large, I know in my heart that in this they're not leading with compassion. If they were they would be teaching reconciliation and love. They would remember that God is infallible and doesn't make mistakes. They would remember that they should not judge lest they be judged. Painting people into a corner by instilling self loathing unless they conform is as far from compassion as you can wander.

Truth is, if God's chosen people are the ones most tested, most tried, have the heaviest crosses, then maybe the lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered are God's chosen. In nearly every culture and religion, the LGBT people have been persecuted -- in some cases executed or chemically castrated by their governments. And I'm not talking about remote corners of the world. I'm talking the western world in recent history.

I've realized also that I've been reticent to put my views on the subject out there only because I know that people who love me, people who conform to the conservative Christian point of view and are social conservatives but still love me, may read this post. They may see what I really think. And I think that a lot of prayers are going to be sent up to change my mind and my heart on this.

But it is my hope that those prayers get deflected. It is my hope that they'll get turned around and if you ask to change my heart, the prayer will boomerang, hit you instead, and change your heart.

Just lead with compassion. It's an easy litmus test.

Bridges

Today was the Girl Scout Service Unit wide Bridging Ceremony. Just like any other long running organization, Girl Scouts have ceremonies. I think they're important ways to punctuate your membership and experience with that organization. And just like every high school has their own graduation ceremony -- Girl Scouts have their own way to run bridging.

There is always an element of chaos because the ceremonies are "girl led." This is a cornerstone of the Girl Scout philosophy. The girls run the program. As they get older, the leaders become adult advisors/drivers/chaperones and less of "leaders." So the chaos.

You must also know that I have a limited attention span and memory skills.

So when our Service Unit manager, whose girls were running the event, announced that my troop would be performing the flag ceremony, four sets of terrified girl eyes turned towards me. I quoted the internet meme and said, "Keep Calm, and Carry On." I waved them to the back of the room where the flags were just like we knew exactly what we were doing. The girls all asking me, "did you know?" I hurriedly told them that I didn't but we'll be fine. We'd done this dozens of times. At the back of the room, I quickly asked them who wanted to be caller to which they all said, "Not me." Ultimately, my own daughter said she would.

They did great!

My girls are trailblazers. I'm so proud of them.

They all hate their new vests. They're awfully big, but they'll be wearing the same vests until they're seniors in high school. 6 years is a lot of growing.

Fieldtrip

Today my 7 year old went on a field trip to a local dance studio with her class. Lucky me, I got to chaperone. As I was the first mom to arrive, I was given the worst and most difficult to assign position -- walking at the end of the line.

It's an important task. You need to be the person who makes sure that the children all are accounted for. No kids are ever behind you or they might just wander off.

The teacher had just a few rules -- hold hands with your buddy, stay on the side walk, we don't stop and pick things up, and feet are for walking, not for kicking or running. She pretty much listed all the behaviors that they wanted to do -- except for the pushing and cutting in line part. So I spent the 10 minute walk, felt a lot longer, repeating the words, "Walk, walk, walk..." and, "Stay on the sidewalk." My big threat was, "if you can't hold on to your buddy, you are welcome to hold my hand." I ended up holding the hands of 2 boys at one point because they could not remember to stay on the sidewalk -- climbing up on the wall and making sure that no mud puddle was left unstepped in.

Eww... boy cooties.

Anyway, those same two boys decided to make their way up the line because they were tired of me reminding them to keep up with the class, walk, and hold on to each other. Unfortunately, they had already told me their names so when I witnessed them push my daughter... They kind of poked the mama bear. I know, I suppose I shouldn't have let my emotions get to me, but I think if I had witnessed them pushing any other student, I would have pulled them back to the end of the line to walk with me anyway.

I called out their names, walked up to both of them and grabbed their shoulders to direct them to the end of the line. I told them that they were not allowed to push other students. And then I closed with a very sexist thing that I'm not sure flies anymore, but I'm still going to use it, "Never, ever push a girl. Ever."

I think I did the right thing there in the sense that they will still grow up to be men and they will still have more body mass and strength than the average woman. So I'm going to stand by the never hit a girl thing, because I think it is a life lesson. Plus, my girls learn martial arts.

My girls push back.

Jonathan

A while ago I was lamenting that I had lost touch with one of my best friends in college. He was a resident advisor with me the first year I did that job. I remember that when I first met him, I was so young and just had no worldly experience. I'm sure part of that was from growing up in parochial school. After all, meeting anybody who wasn't Catholic seemed like a huge deal to me back then. He was friendly and open and yes, I admit, I had a little bit of a school girl crush on him. But that quickly faded when he told me that he was queer. I remember the initial confusion with the word because I hadn't heard it before.

Don't worry, I figured it out.

He was a returning student, had worked as a flight attendant for several years and decided to go back to school to become a school teacher. To me, he was older (maybe by just 6 or 7 years), worldly as he had traveled everywhere as a flight attendant, and just one of the best guy friends I had ever had in my life. We talked to each other about boys and how confusing they were. We talked about our crushes and loves. We were both there for each other when we met our husbands.

When Jonathan met Kevin, they were at the pool on campus. I know, it sounds like a movie. Kevin was coming off a divorce finally accepting that he was a gay man. Jonathan and I processed his worries that maybe Kevin hadn't been in the dating world long enough, that maybe Kevin needed to sow some wild oats before settling down.  They were *so* in love and Kevin was really pushing settling down. This is going to sound corny, but the first time I ever saw them kiss or watched as Kevin nuzzled Jonathan's neck, I remember thinking how I recognized that look. It was just love.

The three of us went to the botanical garden and flower show at the Seattle Convention Center. It's so very stereotypically gay!  Jonathan was a Botany major so it made sense. Afterwards, with my newly minted 21 year old driver's license, they suggested we go for drinks. I thought it was a fabulous idea. I don't know what I was thinking or what I should have expected. For me, I had just spent the day with two guy friends. I didn't think at all about what kind of bar they were going to take me to.

Right outside the door, as Kevin held the door open for me he said, "This might be a culture shock for you." And there it was, I walked in and it was all guys. I was the only woman there flanked by two good looking guys. In hindsight, all the eyes turning looking at us were probably checking out Kevin and Jonathan. At the time, I thought they were looking at me questioning what the hell I was doing there. I felt like a fish out of water.

Wistful this morning, I did a search on Facebook for Jonathan. Came up with a bunch of Jonathans but none that looked like him. Then I Binged Kevin & Jonathan, and the last place I knew that they lived.

And I found Kevin's obituary.

Kevin died in February 2009 of a heart attack at age 46. The obituary said that he would be missed by his parents, grandfather, brothers and his partner in life, Jonathan. I know the news is 3 years old for his loved ones. But this morning I'm grieving for my friend, wishing I could have offered comfort to Jonathan.

And after all of that, I still don't know how to reach him.

But on the off chance that he finds this, or maybe somebody knows how to reach him from our shared circle of friends or alums, let him know that I cried fresh tears for his loss. And that I miss his presence in my life.

H2O Polo

Last night I went to my son's home game. A team from Seattle came and pretty much destroyed our boys. But not initially. No, not at first. The first and last quarters were very good. My boy assisted with a goal -- first goal of the game. Then he got the last goal that their team scored, the last of 4. The middle was a bunch of splashing in which the other team rolled over our boys.

But I'm one of those moms who cheers for everybody. Even the other team. Because that's who I am. Not really loudly for the other team, but I just think that when you don't clap for the efforts of the other guys, or  clap for your own team when they try hard but come up short, you've missed something about youth sports.

I cheered just as loud for each shot on goal whether or not it made it in. I screamed loudly when I saw them block a shot or if my boy defended against his opponent to cause the loss of possession (that was pretty awesome).

So many times lately, I look at my boy and he's not happy. He's so very serious. I'm not sure if it is grades (I wish) or girls or friends. But for me, I think it is probably something I can't fix. So last night when I went to his game and because it was a home game, all his friends could come, I knew I had to rein it in. Loud cheering would likely not be appreciated by the boy. When he saw his friends walk in and they called out to him while he was in the pool, I saw him turn around and his face just lit up.

God, I miss that smile sometimes.

So I made it a point not to be the crazy screaming mom on the sidelines. It doesn't hurt that I don't understand a lot of what is going on despite having read the primer on water polo a bunch of times. Here's what I do know:  (1.) The other players are going to drown my son. I must not panic about that. (2.) My son can give as good as he gets. (3.) I have no idea what it is like in the pool so thankfully, I can make no critiques as I have no frame of reference. (4.) I love what this sport does for my son. I love it.

Dress up

I loved prom.

I know a lot of people didn't go to theirs or hated the whole thing. Me, I loved it. Maybe it was something about the whole dressing up thing. I love dressing up. Finding the shoes, the perfect dress, the coordinating outfits, the flowers. All that just holds a massive amount of appeal for me. And it was innocent. Back in my day, prom was just a big dance. It wasn't some kind of invitation to sex and orgies. Actually, I don't know, maybe it was. I just wasn't invited to those festivities. For me, it was a night of playing grown-up  princess with the pretty clothes and maybe a prince in a tuxedo.

So when my son was finally old enough to go to his first banquet, I was so excited. I knew better than to try to help him pick out a suit. I sent his dad. Shopping with the boy is always torture, mostly because he thinks that everything I pick out is wrong and ugly. I knew that if I suggested anything, he'd just hate it and I couldn't deal with the rejection from my then 13 year old son. With the help of a salesperson, a suit was selected and fitted. But the day of the dance, I could barely get a picture of him. He wanted to be with his friends. He didn't want to get dressed until he was at his friend's house. Only after considerable begging on my part, did he deign to put on the suit for me to take a picture, but by then my feelings were well beyond bruised. I wasn't going to share even a tiny part of this event.

He just doesn't get it. For him, it is just another dance. He gets to go hang out with his friends, ask a girl on a date, and have fun.

He doesn't understand that for me, there is a fun in just seeing the outfits. That for me --  it is a rite of passage seeing my boy growing into a man. That for me -- finding out that homecoming is this weekend from other people and not him is excruciatingly mean. When I asked him about it yesterday, he said he hadn't told me because I hadn't asked about homecoming.

So this morning, on the eve of yet another homecoming that I won't have pictures of, I picked a stupid fight with my son for no good reason. I blew out of proportion the fact that he overslept and missed his bus. I flew off the handle because he didn't ask me politely for a ride to school. I told him that he was going to be late and that wasn't going to call in and excuse the tardy because he should have gotten ready on time.

Ah, my parenting style at its finest.

So I'll resign myself to not seeing the pretty outfits, or rather, I'll get to peruse the pictures my friends have of their kids on Facebook. If I'm lucky, they'll catch pictures of my son in the background. Just one more thing I'm going to give up.

I hope my daughters will let me be part of their dances. Fingers crossed.

You probably won't find this on Pinterest

I've got a couple of funny problem solving things that probably won't make much of a splash on Pinterest. If you have ever been down that time sink, you'll see gorgeous and perfectly framed photos from all over the net. Most of my friends post craft ideas and food ideas. Most of the time I feel like I'm not creative enough. Lots of, "why didn't I think of that?" moments for me.

But no more.

My Holly is a messy drinker. She's a dog. They're messy no matter what. I bought one of those plastic mats to keep the water she splashes out of her dog bowl to a minimum. Her splashing defeated the plastic mat. If I wanted the thing to be several yards wide, it probably would be okay. But the truth is, I have her dog bowl on the hardwood floor. I'm not pleased with when water lands on it because I'm *supposed* to clean it up right away. I'm just not that fastidious about that. And she's a dog. It's not like she has scheduled times to have a drink of water. We got her one of those gallon sized auto refill type bowls. I thought it would probably be a good thing if I could just raise the lip of the bowl a few inches. Then she'd have to stick her face into the bowl to drink out of it.

Using a cottage cheese container, I cut it in half, cut out the bottom to the desired height, and voila, a splash guard is born. Joy.

(This is the part where people typically post the picture of their completed projects and the steps it took to get there. Unfortunately, I don't have one of those cottage cheese containers to show you the before picture, and who am I kidding if I were to say that I'd post the pictures eventually. Heh, you should know better by now. I am not going to post pictures. If you need to know how to do this, then figure it out yourself.)

Here is my other great idea.

A couple of years ago, one of my kids came home with lice. I know. Gross. I'm actually not too freaked out by it because when it is all over, it wasn't so bad to deal with. I mean, yes, there was the daily washing and drying of the bed sheets and the constant vacuuming, but as far as pestilence goes, lice are not so hard to eradicate. There was the initial poison in the hair and lice combs which was a serious hassle. I thought about shaving her head. Might have been better. So that's the background. The lice combs have been at the bottom of my bathroom drawer for a very long time now.

A few weeks ago, I was struggling with my mascara comb. For anybody who has tried to do this, you know what I'm talking about. You apply your mascara. While it is still wet on your lashes, you're supposed to take your mascara comb, imagine a Barbie sized hair comb with a long handle, and comb through your lashes to ensure they're separated. But if you're a fraction of a second too late, there really will be no way to get the comb tines through your lashes and they'll be clumped up for the rest of the day.

One of my favorite make-up artists on YouTube is GossMakeupArtist. He's awesome. He suggests using your mascara comb to apply the mascara. You put the mascara paste on the comb itself and run that through your lashes which puts a very small amount of mascara on each lash without clumping. It's great. But my Barbie comb wasn't working as I wanted it to. The tines were too short.

Enter the lice combs.

Yes, I used the lice combs to apply my mascara and it works beautifully. The tines are about 2 inches long, all the tips are dulled so I'm not in jeopardy of stabbing my eyes with the metal tines. And the results are perfect.

Who knew there would be a new use for lice combs other than reminding me of a terrible period of time when the whole family had to get their hair ironed daily and the vacuum died from overuse.

So there you have it, two Pinterest worthy how to's without the glossy pictures.... unless I get inspired at some point in the future.

Don't hold your breath.