I’m off this morning to participate in my lesbian neighbor’s {Let’s call them K & H} domestic partnership ceremony. My town in New Jersey is holding an official ceremony for all the same sex couples and then throwing a big celebration in a park across the street from town hall. There are many same sex couples in our town and it is one of the things that drew us to this particular suburb. It’s not quite as cookie cutter as some suburbs.
Last night H came over with one of her Vietnamese twins to pick up her oldest daughter who is friends with my youngest. We were drinking a glass of wine and discussing how our bodies have fallen apart and how hard it is to get them back at our age. She was once a professional body builder and I was once a non-beer drinker. An hour earlier I was sitting in the backyard drinking a beer with her partner K and I asked her how she felt about the ceremony.
“I don’t want to make a big deal about it and H wants me to wear a dress. I don’t own a dress and I’ve never worn a dress,” she told me.
K had just brought over corsages and a hat wrapped in flowers to store in our refrigerator. We sat in the backyard and discussed the trees that were growing around us. I love K. I can hang out with K for hours. At first we were quite wary around each other. H was much more forward and she burst into our lives without hesitation while K and I kept our distance. Then the moment came when my wife volunteered me and my truck to help K pick up her new grill at Home Depot. At one point during that day K turned to me and said, “You’re a good guy, I trust you.” I have loved her ever since. It was a moment of vulnerability for her and a moment of relief for me. She acts very tough but in that moment she let me know who she was and I was honored to gain her trust.
After H and I had finished our wine she went upstairs to get her oldest daughter. We have a monitor up there to keep an ear out for the kids because their playroom is on the third floor. Here’s something of what I heard:
“Come on Bea, time to go,” I heard H say through the monitor.
“Why?” B protested.
“We have to go home and get ready for tomorrow.”
“Yeah”, B said tauntingly in that 5-year-old way of which she is wont to do on many occasions. “I’m going to be the flower girl at my Mom’s wedding tomorrow!”
“Well it’s not a wedding, it’s a domestic partnership ceremony,” explained H.
“What’s that,” asked my oldest who is 8?
“It’s when two women or two men form a partnership, but they can’t get married yet.”
“Are you going to wear a wedding dress,” asked my youngest who is 4?
“No,” said H. “We’re only allowed 14 of the 800 rights that married people are allowed so until we get all 800 I won’t wear a wedding dress. But when we do get the 800 I’ll definitely wear a wedding dress.”
“Oh,” said my youngest.
I smiled to myself downstairs at how things do progress in our world. Perhaps not as quickly as we hope but they do progress.
Very nice.
You’re going to fit in nicely around here.
Thanks Big Dan I am off to the bookstore to get Moneyball and Liar’s Poker. Never heard of the latter and I love poker!
Uh Oh, I’m mixing posts! That last post was in reference to summer reading lists! Am I going to get a summons from the blog police?
You’ll never fit in here.
(by the by, post and tell everyone how great Moneyball is once you finish – it’s a page-turner once you get into it)
AND I’m sorry that the hated Yankees might get Randy Johnson. Just imagine how I feel as a Blue Jays fan, getting whupped by the team you love AND the team you hate.
You were once a non-beer drinker? What could possibly cause such a disgusting condition?
Great story otherwise. :)
“You were once a non-beer drinker? What could possibly cause such a disgusting condition?”
Disgusting? More like unimaginable. At least you’re a Sox fan (and a fellow David), or I’d be cursing you for filling my simple little lawyer’s mind with such horrifying cognitive dissonance. :-p
OK guys, I hate to risk excommunication, but I’ve never formed the close emotional relationship with beer that many of you seem to have. I mean, I do drink a fair amount of beer – it’s an excellent social lubricant, especially welcome after yet another disheartening week at the office. But I very rarely drink it when I’m at home alone. The taste just doesn’t do all that much for me. The intense feelings people seem to have for certain brands – brands that seems almost indistinguishable to me from other brands – leaves me mystified. I guess I’m just on the outside of the beer bottle looking in.
At this moment, I have a strong sense that Emily is preparing to hit me with a stick…
Hit you with a stick? Naw. Now, if you wouldn’t mind balancing this apple on your head and holding still….
I drink beer like it’s a religion. Perhaps my 11 year hiatus from it has influenced me in these past few years to make the God of Bacchus my sole deity. Was Bacchus a God? Or is it Dionysus…I’m too drunk to remember. Any how, Chimay Red Label is one of my fave’s. It is made by Trappist Monks. For your more run of the mill beers I go to Newcastle. Anyone else care to add their favorite beers to this list? I would love some reccomendations.
Chimay is gooooood. Anyone who speaks well of Belgian beers gets major bonus points: after a few months in Brussels, Hoegaarden’s my personal all-time favorite, with Duvel a close second. Ever been to the Brickskeller in DC Tangentially, since they appear to live on beer, chocolate, waffles, mussels and frenc fries drowned in mayonnaise, I’ve wondered ever since why the Belgians don’t all weigh a thousand pounds.
Oh, and Dionysus and Bacchus were the Greek and Roman names, respectively, for the same god.
Well, when I wanna get fancy, I love Stella Artois. YUMMY Belgian beer. In my parish, there are two priests, both of whom went to seminary in Louvain,Belgium. The 6o year old priest usually only drinks wine, or scotch, but will make an exception for Stella Artois on occasion. The 4o year old priest tells us about the Coke machine in the seminary that they filled with Stella Artois and rigged it to dispense free beer. Gotta love that!!! For a summer beer, I have been drinking something with the name Middlebury in the title. (although my husband tells me that is not the name of it, but I know I am right- ha ha!)It has a SLIGHT blueberry essence to it, but not gross and fruity and girly. David, you must remember The Mews. My husband and I have been working our way through their menu, to try all the good ones.
Beth, my apologies in advance, but Stella is one of the few Belgian beers I don’t particularly like. And as for “gross and fruity and girly,” I’m not about to deny my fondness for Mort Subite Framboise: so it’s beer flavored with strawberries, so what? It’s good stuff. Is there a problem with that? ;-)
Anything – or anyone – flavored with strawberries is ok in my book!
I have a buddy who travels specifically to try new beer. Who else would honeymoon in The Czech Republic without actually knowing anyone there?
-Big Dan (update your links, please, to: http://www.danielchampion.com/)
OK Emily, I’ll strive harder to nurture a love for the substance. I may have been a race car driver, but I’m not brave enough to want to spend much time on your bad side…
I completely forgive you, Dave J, for not loving Stella. After all, my father just about disowned me for not loving Heineken. I have come to the sad conclusion that I generally don’t love stinky beer that comes in green bottles. There is a restaurant by us in RI that boasts a HUGE beer menu. It is such a cool place- you can try a rack of beer, kinda like a sampler of beers. If you are ever in RI, I highly recommend The Mews Tavern in Wakefield.
Beautiful Dave.
And I have to say I completely agree with H. My partner (a term I’m getting really sick and tired of) and I have known each other and been best friends since 1978. We were engaged for a year, and were married (a term I’d like to use more often) on Dec. 4 1995. I’m a female, she’s a female. It’s a female thing.
14 out of 800 rights. Yup. Aint it the truth. And yeah, things are changing. Not fast enough for me, but then again, the microwave isn’t fast enough for me. I know in another 25 or 30 years people will look back on how we treated same sex marriages, and either point and laugh at us for being so ridiculous…….well, I actually can’t think of what else they would do.
Thanks for the post, Dave. Fantastic!
Alex, it’s 4 am. I’m about to write my next entry because Sheila left me this blog and I’m just writing it as it comes. I’m wasted. I played poker until right now and I’m going to just write what comes. This morning I did the same (actually yesterday morning). I woke up and the event of the day was this beautiful Domestic Partnership celebration and I wrote about it and why I was going to it. I’m glad I was there.
Beth, I will never forgive myself for not going to the Mews. I was a Bon Vue, Bobby G’s kinda frat boy and now, since I left RI I have been informed of the 65 beers on tap that exist there. If you can believe this, my 16 year old neice who works there informed me of this this summer.
PS. I know who both of you are Beth and Alex, only by proxy of Sheila and Mitchell, never meeting you, I’m drunk, and subsequently, I love you both!!
Well, that’s ok, David, because I am NOT drunk and I love you too!!! Isn’t it weird how these things can happen??? I know Mitchell on a very superficial level, and yet I feel like I know him SOOOOOOOOOOOO deeply and love him with all my heart, because of a shared Sheila history. PS Same goes for Maria,Jackie, Annmarie, various boyfriends that I do not dare name on the blog and I can’t remember their fake names, Brooke, and Jen. Sorry if I left any of my fake friends out. But I love you all- ha ha!!
It is funny how we know so much about each other and never met. Perhaps someday Beth we can all sit together at the Mews to sample some of their delicous beer! Wouldn’t that be cool?!
Yeah, that would be cool! But Sheila would probably be pretty nervous and awkward, hoping we all got along and stuff. I say we stage a HUGE fake fight with lots of tears and throwing beer in faces. But then again, we might get kicked out and I DO live around here….