Snow-a-cane, day 462

Poor Koda , finally!, got out of the house, he was getting a little stir crazy.
There is still so much snow, still knee deep, a little hard for both of us to get around.
But we had a good romp.
Then off to pick up Neil at the airport.
WELCOME HOME!
A mountain of snow in the Wegman's parking lot.
The bar across the street.. colorful snow mobiles.
They tend to go from bar to bar to bar around the area...
It was 37 degrees in Pittsford, and 27 in Mendon, not really very far at all, but the drop causes this funky ice fog... looks a little spooky...

One more for the road.

I have really enjoyed the Olympic games this year. Not usually a fan of the Winter games, but, I guess the nasty New England/New York weather these past couple of weeks has kept me inside and have watched more. I did miss little Boo Boo win his sledding gold last night, and all that pot smoking ski board stuff bores the heck out of me, but LOVED the Curling and all the quirky late night stuff that NBC ran on Cnbc and Msnbc. Large Russian women, skiing and shooting at stuff, what is not to love.

God, keep our land FABULOUS and Free.....

I watched the first instalment of the Sundance Channel many part series BE GOOD JOHNNY WEIR and am just a little bit in love with this guy. Total diva, really... not someone you would really want to spend any time with, but driven, smart, TALENTED, quirky, powerful, graceful..... and fearless.

I am gay as a goose, but me and the Wanker don't really know shit about the ice skating. To me they all live in the ice skating dorm ( nee: "ski dorm") and come out like ground hogs every four years to skate at the Olympics, NOT TRUE. The guys that you see , and ladies, I assume, are competing monthly against each other and have for years and years. Johnny Weir OWNED Evan Whozy Whatzit since they were kids. One does not spring up all Athena like in Lycra and sparkles , they have been doing this for years and years and years... That was some what of a revaluation to me.

Mr. Weir scares the tight pants off of the powers that be in the ice skating world, and I think it's pretty darn telling and more than a little bit funny. And LOVE the fact that Johnny should laugh all the way to the bank on this one.....

The PR boys do a little re-capping.

Yoknapatawpha! Yoknapatawpha! Rah, Rah, Rah!

For all the SEC football die-hards stuck here in the middle of this endless Winter, the biggest news floating about is the broo-ha-ha down in Oxford, over who , or what , if anything is going to replace Colonel Reb.

You know, old times here are not forgotten... on and on. That said Mr. Colonel Reb is only 25 years old , so no real tears being shed here. The song and flag have long since been gone. The student body voted on the changes and like 25 % cast a ballot, seems more of an alumni thing. BUT, the mascot that is leading in the polls to roam the sidelines with Hairydawg and Aubie is , The Supreme Commander of the Rebel Alliance Fleet :

Admiral Ackbar!

Really.

Some purist are all up in arms over this and much handwringing is going on. I do not think that even the powers that be at Ole Miss could get Lucasfilms to allow this to happen, so lets go on to plan B. Enter the CRANKYPROFESSOR.

My good pal Michael had the great idea of changing the whole set up, get rid of the whole REB thing and get much more to home:

THE FIGHTING FAULKNERS!

A sort of boozie, pipe smoking ,Oxford native, perfect for SEC football.

Snow-a-cane + 1

THE MORNING AFTER

Koda sums up what most of us feel about the storm. I guess it was not as bad up here as some other place, or it is just that this far north they know how to deal with it better.
It's snowing again, a little bit, very light...
There is A LOT of it. Pretty sure this is the most I have seen from one storm, at one sitting
I have not called the guy to do the driveway, nor have I even tried to leave the house.

No, no , no silly queens.. that was Tennessee... this is New York, I get it and I ♥ the homos, NOW...

"mocking the heteropatriarchy"

Look, in one fell swoop, I learned a new phrase AND received a brand new creed!

Tonight's guests on PBS's Bill Moyers Journal were Ted Boies and Ted Olson, the two attorneys representing two same sex couples in the case to over turn California's prop 8: Perry v Schwarzenegger.

WATCH HERE

I can not embed the video on here, so just watch, please. It's long, the entire show, but

I just found it fascinating. Here is the transcript of Mr. Moyers opening:

"You may not believe this, but the two marquee lawyers who fought each other all the way to the Supreme Court to decide whether Al Gore or George W. Bush would become president are at it again. But this time they're fighting as allies to defend marriage equality.

It's true. Ted Olson, a conservative, and David Boies, a liberal, are in the middle of a case that, win or lose, they expect, will wind up at the Supreme Court, just like Bush v. Gore. The former adversaries have united in support of core American values: diversity, equality and tolerance. They're key players in one of the most important civil rights trials of the last decade. It's a pivotal legal action that could change our society, but which has escaped the attention of much of the country."

Sometimes I forget that everyone does not spend a couple of hours a day reading progressive news sites, so I found it very shocking that this case could have" escaped the attention of much of the country" Pretty sure that the Friday Night PBS crowd is pretty well informed.

I have not been writing all that much about gay marriage lately, because I just got burned out post the debacle in worthless Albany this fall. Combined with Maine, it was just too much. I needed to take a brake from the just full out hateful anger and lies of the right wing bigots. Not that I am a fair weather activist, well, maybe just a little bit, BUT , some good news this week down in Maryland , as their Attorney General is requiring the state to recognize all out of state /country marriages, just like us here in New York.

And in just a the coming days, March 8th, I think , Washington, DC, will have full blown marriage equality. Crazy nut job GOP congressmen be damned.

LAWRENCE v TEXAS

One thing brought up on tonight's show was something I had forgotten, Justice Antonin Scalia's vile loosing screed on the case : "BILL MOYERS: "So, if you go to the Supreme Court, Ted, you're going to run smack up against some of your best friends. I mean, as you know, when you mentioned that 2003 case, when the court outlawed Texas laws against sodomy Justice Scalia issued a strong, some say virulent, dissent. And he said that this decision effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation, and would lead to sanctioning same sex marriages.

He went on to accuse his colleagues on the court of aligning themselves with the quote "homosexual agenda." Let me read you this. This is from Justice Scalia. "Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as teachers in their children's schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive."

My original take tonight was anger that this theocratic man sits in judgment of me, but Neil cleared thing up by pointing out that he was right. Lawrence is the law of the land, and will not be overturned, so yes, Justice Scalia and your puppet - Lawrence WILL lead to the " sanctioning of same sex marriages" . Who knew the evil one ( and his puppet) has a crystal ball!

The cool logic, the judicial knowledge of Boies and Olsen just made the argument against marriage equality just seem.. silly. A side bar of the case is that the right wing haters are going INSANE over the fact that the Reagan and Bush I nominated Federal judge hearing the case , Vaughn R. Walker is gay. A final ruling in the case by Judge Walker is expected in early to mid-March. But it will then starts its path to the Supreme Court.

stereotypical gay cake

As if I needed a reason to LOVE the man any more than I do.....

From Huffpo and that cute little elf of a GOP apologist Mike Allen :

"George W. Bush took a shot at fellow ex-president Jimmy Carter during this morning's closed-door reunion breakfast for Bush-Cheney alums, saying Carter "made my life miserable."

While discussing his future plans, according to Mike Allen, Bush implicitly criticized Carter for offering him unsolicited advice during Bush's presidency. "I have no desire to see myself on television. I don't want to be a panel of formers instructing the currents on what to do. ... I'm trying to regain a sense of anonymity. I didn't like it when a certain former president -- and it wasn't 41 or 42 -- made my life miserable," Bush said."

(more.....)

Good job, Mr. President !

The Day After the Revolution:

1. Ban all chewing gum.
2. Make people understand that it is called CLIMATE CHANGE, not GLOBAL WARMING.

This is Luxembourg. No, I could not have found it on a map before I started typing this. Today we found out that an " iceberg" the size of this European Grande-Duchy broke off from Antarctica.

From Reuters : SINGAPORE (Reuters) - "An iceberg the size of Luxembourg has broken off from a glacier in Antarctica after being rammed by another giant iceberg, scientists said on Friday, in an event that could affect ocean circulation patterns" ( read on...)

It may not be climate change, it may be climate change... it is a freaking big ass piece of ice floating out into the ocean....

Then and Now

Inside fun!

Today on Turner Classic Movies:

• Mrs. Miniver. (1942) Me and Greer are weathering the storm. I love this movie, always have. All stiff upper lip and all.
• The Merry Widow (1952) Lana Tuner... never seen it...
• The V.I.P.'s (1963) Pure Liz and Dick trash... watch it just for the jewelry. It is all real, and all Liz's. ( can you say write off....)
• The Whisperers (1967) never seen it... don't really know anything about it.

Yes, we got a lot of snow last night.

Neil's old school system is closed for only the second time since I have lived up here. It really does not look like ALL that much snow, but I guess early this morning as the buses would have been out fetching the little darlings, it was very bad. Looks like about a foot here, which again, is manageable. BUT, the snow is so heavy that it has compacted the old stuff under it into ice, which makes walking outside pretty darn dicey!

It is about noon and still snowing pretty darn hard out.. so who knows how much there will be when this one is all over.

We are a hearty lot...

No little snow hurricane is going to stop the denizens of the Cottage Hotel from getting out tonight. Big crowd, must be a Syracuse Basketball or Cornell Hockey game, or something. I hope they all get home all safe and sound.

Snow Hurricane....

Now really, newscasters and weather folk, was that necessary?

"HEY!", it is going to snow... a lot, and be well, quite windy". We all would have gotten the message, but you just had to go that one step farther , one degree too much.. and call it a snow hurricane.

Mendon is right at the head of the giant blue phallus coming out of New York City, we are the edge of the 12 to 24 inches of snow. But, watch us Mid-Atlantic, we hearty upstate folk know how to deal with it . I will say that is it very rare for the tv talking heads to get this rilled up over snow, so it is a little bit scary.

Neil got the heck out of Dodge early this a.m. , heading down to D.C. , leaving Koda and I to fend off the wolves and snow creatures.
Hit Wegman's on the way home from the airport for the required jumbo-pot-of-snow-chili. A little busy, nothing really over the top. Pretty sad that I stocked up for the storm and did not buy any beer. Getting old sucks. ( well, that and Koda is not all that much fun to drink with...)
It has been snowing all day long, but the weather folks are saying that this is not even the storm that is going to bury us, this is just some left over snow, a little windy too...
So, we are hunkered down, plenty of firewood and the hand crank flashlight. I'll keep, you the k+b readers up-to-date on Hurricane Bumble, but really, will not be in any way upset if it DOES NOT happen.

Fail Britannia....

NOOOOOOOOOO!

There is no joy in Vancouver, my mighty ( and mighty darn cute!) British Men's Curling team is out... out ... rocked? stoned? thrown? by an upstart YOUNG Swedish team.

From TSN :

"Vancouver, BC (Sports Network) - Sweden beat Great Britain in extra ends Wednesday to earn the final semifinal spot in men's curling at the Vancouver Olympics.
Sweden and Britain both had 5-4 records in round robin play and were forced to meet in a tiebreaker for the last playoff seed. The Swedes notched a point in the 11th end to take a 7-6 victory and move on to Thursday's semifinal encounter against top-seeded Canada.
Great Britain pushed the game to an extra end by tying the game at 6-6 with one point in the 10th. However, the Swedes claimed victory on a take-out by skip Niklas Edin on the final throw of the 11th, replacing a British stone that was in scoring position with one of his own.
On Thursday, the Swedes will face the Canadians, who won gold at the 2006 Turin Games and went a perfect 9-0 in round robin play this year"

At least now I will not be torn, It is now all Canada, all the time.... ( also VERY cute!)

OH! Canada!

Dinner

BIG TURKEY DINNER

Before Thanksgiving Wegman's had these loss leader turkeys, 19¢ or something a pound, and all of the greater Finger Lakes area, turkeied up. This 4 dollar bad boy has been taking up most of my freezer for months, and on Sunday, he went down to the fridge, today, he found the oven!

Olive oil and lots of Cajun seasoning, stuffed with lemons and onions etc.. just put that bird in a hot oven for a few min, then dropped to 325 convection, for hours. It came out all crispy and juicy and tasted very good.

Buttery mashed potatoes w/gravy, carrots, bought box dressing ( stuffing) that I had never made but that Neil wanted, it was not bad, and AND the little Mendon market had these canned collard greens that were darn good! Little bit of olive oil and bacon fat in a pan, some slivered onions and red pepper flakes, add rinsed canned collard greens and a little chicken stock,,,
A little mid-winters love on a plate, just the veggies..

This piece of silver is Neil's mothers. She had lots of odd old pieces of Victorian sterling, I have no idea what it is really used for, but it is just PERFECT for the jellied canned cranberry sauce that I have to have with a turkey dinner. It is perfectly round, and does a great job. Tomorrow, turkey/mayo/cranberry sandwich! Who am I kidding, that bad boy will be on a plate by midnight....
Koda had to smell the turkey all day long! The whole family is happily looking forward to their tryptophan coma that is just around the corner!

A better gay than.... well , almost everyone.

Domestic Daddy.

Just go, surf around... spend some time with our liege.

Dinner

YUMMY!

Our pal Roja brought us dinner tonight, yall know how much I love Indian food. Curried Chicken, veggies, scented rice that I just love and homemade bread. Two very happy bears in Mendon tonight!

And many thanks to Roja!

Not the best picture, I have yet to master my new camera...

Noses on faces.......

And spite and such....

Blanket statement: ( not really sure if it is true or not, I hope I do not have to find out.)

If Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach is dis-honorably discharged , or discharged against his will, from the Air Force, I will not vote for President Barack Obama again.

Big fat hairy deal Kyle you are one schmoe in deep blue New York, who cares what you are going to do. VERY true, but in close states, turn out will be what matters, and if you keep enough people under your heel for long enough, if Lucy holds that football one too many times Charlie Brown is not going to come out and try and kick it. People will stay home. The GROSSLY under reported story in the recent Massachusetts election were the number of progressives/liberals/Democrats that stayed home! President Palin could not do any worse by us in the Armed Forces...

From todays WAPO : The Army's top uniformed officer said Tuesday that he has "serious concerns" about overturning a 17-year policy that bans gays from serving openly in the military and supports a yearlong study into the matter before any changes are made. The carefully crafted comments by Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey to the Senate Armed Services Committee indicate reluctance by some within the military's senior ranks to President Barack Obama's plan to repeal "don't ask, don't tell."

(the rest.....)

Sure, sit back and talk, talk, talk. It is the military industrial complex, glaciers zip past them... but while you are talking, stop ruining careers, stop kicking people out! Seems like a no brainer to the 66,882, 230 folks that voted for Mr. Obama to be Commander and Chief and all. Guess we were wrong.

Not a real good day on the homo-front, as that state for lovers, ( and you know Loving v. Virginia) Virginia takes a hard right turn:

You know as fercockt as New York is.... there is still SOME glimmer of non-Neanderthal around.....

2010 White House Governor's Ball

Was held this past Sunday night, and thanks to those stupid stupid gatecrashers, there are very few pics and such coming out of it, but a slow trickle. No views of the Governors and spouses arriving or a picture of Michelle's dress, that I have found .

The Menu

French Onion Soup with Croutons

Rib Eye Roast with Shrimp Scampi

Roasted Potatoes, Carrots and Mushroom Caps

Seven Layer Salad

Baked Alaska

I just love it, very retro, very snowy winters night in Washington DC. The ghost of Mamie would have been pleased.

The Place Settings

Service Plate : Clinton State China

King Charles Silver flatware

Cream Soup Cup and Saucer : Johnson State China ( a favorite of mine)

FDR State Glassware

hmmmm.. I may not be crazy about that print table cloth, but everyone knows my issue with busy print table cloths, I do what I can. Do love the reds and purples in the center piece with the gold.

Michelle

Looks stunning! no idea of who or what the dress looked like, but will be diligent in finding out this very important fact.

SPRING!

B.Day has claimed that East Cobb is an explosion of Crocuses and such, good for all my Georgia family! We have a sign that Spring will come again, at last as well.

YES! the snow has melted over the septic tank... short pants are right around the corner! Yes-sir-re-bob!

Illegal Sri Lankan food, from Canada

Really.

Nothing illegal about the food, it is the Canada part that makes it that way, you are not supposed to bring organic stuff over the boarder. I once all but had a Midnight Express moment sneaking some Thai Basil back across .

We are not sure exactly what it was, but it was very tasty, and MOST spicy! I am going to go with chicken, because I can sleep better that way.

SRI LANKA

CURLING MANIA!

You can't read this, don't even really try, and even if you could , it really would not make all that much sense. But, it is true, Curling mania is .... ( wait for it)..... SWEEPING THE NATION.

From TIME : "During curling's run in the Olympics every four years, much of the sports-viewing world gets either strangely addicted or totally bemused by watching the old guys push stones and sweep brooms in what often looks like shuffleboard on ice. But at this year's event, emotions seem to be at an all-time high. Every day, capacity crowds of 5,600 are filling the Vancouver Olympic Centre, mostly to cheer on Canada, home to 729,000 of the 1.1 million curlers around the globe. The atmosphere is even more electric than the scenes in arenas for other sports, like figure skating. There are two sports in which the Canadians expect nothing less than gold: hockey and curling, and not necessarily in that order." (more...)

Well the U.S. beat them in the mens hockey, so now it is all curling, all the time! MSNBC has somewhat shuffled Keith and Rachel and along with CNBC ( which I did not even know I had..) has become all curling, all the time. Heaven!

From what I can glean so far, if your grandfather did not play the sport every day of his frozen life, then it is all but impossible to really understand the rules. They seem to change at will, and everyone seems fine with that. It is just loads of fun to watch. And , ummm.. well.. ok.. the Great Britain and Canadian Mens teams are SMOKING HOT! Seriously..

This is David Murdoch: reason alone to watch the games....

And also,from a personal point of view, it is, with out a doubt ,the most moopah of all " sports" ever. I mean, from the looks of things you can drink , and smoke if you like ,with the tv on.. and still do really well at the game. There is a whole lot of standing around, talking about what you are going to do next, a very moopah thing, you know, not DOING the next thing, but really talking about what you might do next, for a good long time, while having another beer...

AND what might be my favorite part of the whole thing - OTHER than those white shirts that the Great Britain team wears - is the fact that if you are down by a lot, or really , from the looks of things, just get tired of playing, you just walk over to the other guys team and shake his hand, and its all over!

None of this " YEAH COME ON! WE CAN DO IT " loud sort of Gipperish bs, just a gentlemanly shake of the hand and off to the bar.

5:00 pm (est) tonight folks, Canada ( !!! ) v China , should be on that CNBC thing.. maybe I'll live blog it...

(feeling a TINY bit better about IZZY after these guys...)

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

to us!

Who is driving the G.O.P. bus ?

So, not only did the CPAC crazies spank half Governor Palin by putting her way past steerage in their little straw poll ( Crazy poster child Rep. Ron Paul won, big..) BUT, then they asked the gathered Cheney Drones to list what ....well, you can read. I mean, even if you lump us homos in with the promoting traditional values (which really means keeping the women folk all preggers and in the kitchen..) The Cpackers don't give a fuzzy rats patootie about the gay marriage.

NOW....

Half of CPAC are college kids, who as we all know, grew up watching the Real World and Will and Grace was already in re-runs, but still. You had the major powers that be come before this convention, grovel, grovel, and come away with a big ole "MEH" when it comes to marriage equality.

NOW II, Look at the ONLY thing below that... like I said, kids, who don't care about the health care.