What I Wore Wednesday: USA Catch-up

I've been a bad, bad blogger. I managed to go a do What I Wore Wednesday for a full year (how did I miss that anniversary?) and only miss one week and then I went and missed two in a row. Sometimes life gets in the way of blogging and that was certainly the case since I had plenty of outfit photos.  Unfortunately my Grandma ended up in the hospital and while she is home and fine now it meant I missed WIWW and then last week my flight was delayed back from London and I was exhausted when I got home and just couldn't pull it all together. So apologies! 

We had a great time at home spending time with family and friends and eating far too much. It was a great trip home and I'm so glad we were able to spend as much time in Cincinnati as we did. Three weeks went so fast! So here is our trip in round-up photo style.


This was the first year Blondie Boy picked his own Halloween costume. We asked him fairly early on what he wanted to be and his answer never changed so he was a pirate! I'm totally that Mom who dresses up to take their kid trick or treating so I was a pirate too!

We had this stuffed Blue (from Rio) already in the house so I sewed it on to the vest Blondie Boy wore to my sister's wedding last year along with the tux shirt, some striped PJ pants, a bandanna and his requested moustache and his costume was good to go! The only thing we bought were his skull rainboots which I'm glad we did because it was a wet and cold night.

For my costume I borrowed a white button down from my dad, tied my skull scarf around my waist and raided my Dad's attic (which is full of costumes) for the hat and jacket.

We went trick or treating with my friend Allyson and her son Parker again this year but I somehow didn't manage to get any pictures of the two of them! Parker was such a big help holding Blondie Boy's hand going up and down steps and was just really sweet. BB was a major trooper and stayed out the whole two hours! Apparently the "thing" in my hometown now is golf carts and I thought it was rather telling all the older children being driven around on golf carts while my two year old hoofed it.

The very next day by best friend Sabrina and her son Landon flew out to visit us from Maryland. I'm so lucky to have someone willing to schlep to Cincinnati for me and the boys had so much fun together playing with cars, laughing about burps and we even had a trip to the Cincinnati Zoo. I love the Cincinnati Zoo and it's ruined all other zoos for me because it is SO amazingly awesome.

BB, Me, Sabrina & Landon

When Sabrina and Landon left NotBlondeHusband, my Dad, my step-sister's boyfriend Drew (who you might remember from the Light the Night post) and I went to watch the UC vs. Syracuse game. Both my Dad and I are UC alums but I think we were all really excited for the game; it was crazy how much the campus has changed in 9 years. The weather was frankly awful, but our seats were AMAZING. When it started sleeting we decided to give up but the Bearcats won so all was okay!

Nippert Stadium- Home of the Bearcats!

NBH, Drew and I

We went immediately from the game to meet my sister and her husband and drive up to Dayton for my Grandma's 90th birthday party. Unfortunately I have no photos as the photographer on the day had her camera stolen. How crappy is that? I do have a shot of one of the cute cupcake toppers my sister made though.

Bess rocking a Bikini back in the day

Next up was voting! I'm a huge political nerd so I loved being home for the election. This was the first time I ever voted in person in a presidential election; I've always voted absentee since I was living in DC for university or in Scotland. Since Ohio is a swing state we got upwards of ten phone calls a day at my Dad's house and I had a LOT of fun telling certain callers that I would under no circumstances be voting for their candidate.

Blondie Boy got super excited about voting but that might of just been because he got stickers and candy.

If you are wondering about the cookie every presidential election Busken Bakery in Cincinnati does a Cookie Poll and predicts who will win the election based on which candidate sells more cookies. It has never been wrong!

Since my Grandma ended up in the hospital we got to spend more time with my Mom (who lives in LA) then we thought we would which was nice although not the best circumstances. Luckily she got home quickly and got to spend some more time with Blondie Boy. She'll probably kill me for posting a photo of her without make up but I don't care I think it is super cute!

Blondie Boy and his GG Bess

My Mom, Sister and I

It was great spending so much time with my family and my Dad and my Step-Mom decided to have Thanksgiving early so we could be there! So we had a big family Fauxgiving the Saturday before we left. Blondie Boy had a great time playing with some of his (3rd?) cousins and we all indulged in too much amazing Thanksgiving food. I wish I could take credit for these photos but my sister stole my camera and took way better photos with it after a few minutes than I have all year.

My cousin Betsy and her gorgeous girls

My Grandma Jane and I

My cuzfriend (cousin+friend) Laura and I

I've just realized I have no photos of my Dad and I or my Dad and Blondie Boy. I'm honestly not sure how this happened! Sorry Dad! I went straight from turkey to go see a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show with my friends Allyson, Dana and Candi. We went to see it at the theatre I first saw it at over fifteen years ago! I took advantage of the post Halloween sales and got a french maid costume to be Magenta.

Dana the Transylvanian and Magenta Me

Allyson and Riff Raff

You can't tell but I wore my flowered Doc Marten boots that I've had since I was 15 as part of my costume. When Dana saw them she was surprised they still existed because that is how much I wore them back in the day. I was going to spray my hair red but I had a big presentation in London in two day and I didn't want to risk accidentally staining my hair.

 We had a great night and it just reminded me so much of how you know a good friend when you don't have to see each other all the time but you can just pick up where you left off when you do see each other.

We had such a great trip home and three weeks flew by really quickly. I flew straight from Cincinnati to London for work and then Blondie Boy got sick and then I got sick and I'm off to London again tomorrow but I'm sure when things calm down I will get properly homesick. It was so nice being with my family and seeing Blondie Boy play with his Papa and Mimi and Aunts and just having a great time. Plus I really do love my friends and I hate that I'm so far away from them. I hope they know how freaking amazing they are and how much I miss them.  Don't get me started on Cincinnati food or I'll be here all day. I know we can Skype and Facetime and GChat but it's not the same as being face to face y'know?

Do you live near your family or do you live near where you grew up? 

VOTE!

My fellow Americans please don't forget to get out and vote today!

I've only voted in an actual polling station once in 2002; every other time I've voted by absentee ballot because I was going to unversity in DC or because I was living here in Scotland.

I can remember being so excited when I turned 18 and was able to vote. I don't understand people who don't vote to be honest and if you don't vote you don't get to complain. You totally want to complain, right?

You'll be my American Boy

Blondie Boy's Passport and US Birth Certificate came today. As you can tell he was super excited about it.


My favorite bit though was an accompanying information document which had this at the very end:

Running for President or for Congress

Legal scholars disagree whether someone born overseas to a US parent9s) is considered a "natural born Citizen," one of the Constitutional requirements to become President of the United States. The courts have never made an definitive ruling on this section of the Constitution. One U.S. Senator introduced a bill in October 2004 to clarify what this term actually means. If this bill becomes law, your child would definitively be considered a "natural born Citizen" of the U.S. and therefore could conceivably run for the White House some day. As an American citizen, your child can run for Congress, even though born overseas, but he or she would still have to meet the Constitutional residency and age requirements to run for the House or Senate.

I love that the Embassy is concerned for my son's future political ambitions :)

Obamarama

On the 18th we left Cincinnati and hit the road for DC with some Dunkin Donuts and Diet Mt Dew to help us along the way. NBH drove the first 4 hours and I drove the second.

The drive was snowy most of the way (OH-WV-PA-WV-MD-VA) but alright until we crossed over into Maryland. The road got really bad and we saw lots of accidents. The next day there was a pile-up involving 7 tractor-trailers and 35 passenger on the same stretch of road in the opposite direction. We made it to Dulles to return the car in one piece and Sabrina was kind enough to come and pick us up and let us stay at her house in Silver Spring.

We cleaned up and met my friend Chrystal and Sara at Rocket Bar in DC. Things were already busy and crazy, but the bar wasn't that bad and we got a table. It seemed really fun with SkeeBall, Pool, Darts, etc.

Sabrina and I

NBH and I

On Monday we headed into the city to go pick up our tickets for the inauguration. We requested tickets from every state we could and got some from my Mom's Rep in California. The lines were wrapped well around Canon so I called the office to see if they'd run the tickets out, they said "no."



I kept seeing people getting their tickets brought out to them though. So I figured, maybe if I call again and get an intern rather than a staffer, they will run them out. Sure enough a rather young chap scurried out with them lickity split.




The invitation, tickets and program were all on heavy paper and embossed. It reminded me of a wedding invitation; if your wedding invitation came with 'autographed' photos.














On the 20th Sabrina's husband Andy dropped us off at the Wheaton metro station at 7:30am, we got seats on a red train and then transferred to the green line, where again we got seats. The further into the district we got the more crowded it got. The conducter came on and said that L'Enfant plaza (where we planned to get off) was closed. So we decided we'd get off at the stop before, Metro Center, and walk. As we pulled up to Metro Center, the conductor said that L'Enfant was open again so we stayed on the train. Of course as we pulled into L'Enfant we were told it was closed. So we had to take the train to Pentagon and catch a train (after two full trains passed) back to Metro Center. So our metro journey went: MD-DC-VA-DC.

Bundled up and waiting for a train at Fort Totten

So we finally got out off at Metro Center and I have never seen a station so crowded ever. Luckily they decided to leave the turnstiles open so it took 15-20 minutes to get out and then we started to walk. Lots of streets were closed and you couldn't cross Pennsylvania Avenue so we ended up going through all 4 quadrants of DC that day: NW, NE, SW, SE.

Ridiculously crowded Metro Center (a woman fell onto the tracks!)

We made our way to the line for silver tickets and waiting in line for over an hour when people started coming back saying "they aren't letting anyone else in." So we decided it was best to try and head back. We walk down past the Holocaust museum and down around the Tidal basin. We ended up behind the Washington Monument just before Biden was sworn in. We could see Obama on the big screen, but we couldn't hear anything. At this point we decided to beat the crowds and get back on the metro out to Maryland. Streets were still closed so we walked by where we used to live in Foggy Bottom and up to Farragut North.

Waiting in line

The Capitol

Washington Monument from the Tidal Basin

Tidal Basin

So many people around the monument

Tons of people on the mall

All in all we walked about 6 miles. The train back was empty and Sabrina picked us up and we got subs and thanks to her Tivo watched the swearing in and parade on TV.

NBH jumping for joy outside of Farragut North


That night we had my favorite DC takeaway, Manny & Olga's. Sabrina and I used to order from them all the time in college and I was very happy to have my Steak & Cheese sub with fries. Sabrina also got some super cute Obama cookies for us!

All in all, we were part of history. If we'd known about the drama getting into the ticketed areas, we would have gone to the unticketed areas immediately. We were still there, we still got the atmosphere and the experience and I'm very glad we went.
If you've lasted this long, sorry for the longest post ever!

Leaving on Jet Plane

Tomorrow at the ass crack of dawn (4:15am) a cab is picking us up to take us to the airport. We'll be flying to DC via Amsterdam and then driving from DC to Cincinnati (with an overnight to allow for jetlag in PA).

So please excuse the dead air on my blog while we visit friends, family and Obama.

Prop 8: The Musical

A star-studded cast explains why we should overturn Prop-8.

With a little NPH added in just for my Sabrina

See more hilarious & topical videos at Funny or Die

Prop 8 summed up

Singer Melissa Etheridge rails against the passage of the gay-marriage ban in California—and she won't be paying the state a dime.

Okay. So Prop 8 passed. Alright, I get it. 51% of you think that I am a second class citizen. Alright then. So my wife, uh I mean, roommate? Girlfriend? Special lady friend? You are gonna have to help me here because I am not sure what to call her now. Anyways, she and I are not allowed the same right under the state constitution as any other citizen. Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen. I mean that would just be wrong, to make someone pay taxes and not give them the same rights, sounds sort of like that taxation without representation thing from the history books.

Okay, cool I don't mean to get too personal here but there is a lot I can do with the extra half a million dollars that I will be keeping instead of handing it over to the state of California. Oh, and I am sure Ellen will be a little excited to keep her bazillion bucks that she pays in taxes too. Wow, come to think of it, there are quite a few of us fortunate gay folks that will be having some extra cash this year. What recession? We're gay! I am sure there will be a little box on the tax forms now single, married, divorced, gay, check here if you are gay, yeah, that's not so bad. Of course all of the waiters and hairdressers and UPS workers and gym teachers and such, they won't have to pay their taxes either.

Oh and too bad California, I know you were looking forward to the revenue from all of those extra marriages. I guess you will have to find some other way to get out of the budget trouble you are in.

…Really?

When did it become okay to legislate morality? I try to envision someone reading that legislation "eliminates the right" and then clicking yes. What goes through their mind? Was it the frightening commercial where the little girl comes home and says, "Hi mom, we learned about gays in class today" and then the mother gets that awful worried look and the scary music plays? Do they not know anyone who is gay? If they do, can they look them in the face and say "I believe you do not deserve the same rights as me"? Do they think that their children will never encounter a gay person? Do they think they will never have to explain the 20% of us who are gay and living and working side by side with all the citizens of California?

I got news for them, someday your child is going to come home and ask you what a gay person is. Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away.

I know when I grew up gay was a bad word. Homo, lezzie, faggot, dyke. Ignorance and fear ruled the day. There were so many "thems" back then. The blacks, the poor ... you know, "them". Then there was the immigrants. "Them.” Now the them is me.

I tell myself to take a breath, okay take another one, one of the thems made it to the top. Obama has been elected president. This crazy fearful insanity will end soon. This great state and this great country of ours will finally come to the understanding that there is no "them". We are one. We are united. What you do to someone else you do to yourself. That "judge not, lest ye yourself be judged" are truthful words and not Christian rhetoric.

Today the gay citizenry of this state will pick themselves up and dust themselves off and do what we have been doing for years. We will get back into it. We love this state, we love this country and we are not going to leave it. Even though we could be married in Mass. or Conn, Canada, Holland, Spain and a handful of other countries, this is our home. This is where we work and play and raise our families. We will not rest until we have the full rights of any other citizen. It is that simple, no fearful vote will ever stop us, that is not the American way.
Come to think of it, I should get a federal tax break too...

Melissa Etheridge is an Academy Award-winning and Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter.

The Daily Beast ⓒ

Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night

Fireworks scare the living daylights out of my sweet Emma. Sure it's only one night, except it's not. This goes on for at least a week. I don't like a shaking, panting puppy who is scared to leave my side let alone the house.

The Postal Service

Not the band, I am neutral on them. I mean USPS, Royal Mail, etc. My absentee ballot was posted on October 17th, it arrived November 5th. NBH and I sent postcards on our honeymoon in the Dominican Republic, August 18th and they arrived to people this week. Maybe I'm being unrealistic here, but mail shouldn't take 3 months.

South Beach Phase 1

I know I have sung the phases of SB before and I lost 3 1/2 stone (~50lbs) on it, but this time around on Phase 1 is a total pain in the ass. I'm really struggling and have absolutely no motivation to stick with it for 2 weeks. You'd think shifting 10lbs post wedding weight would be motivation enough, but apparently not.

Sour Grapes GOP


McCain was ridiculously gracious, so why can't you be? I'm really tired of FB status messages that say "I refuse to raise my children in a blue state" and "Here comes the apocalypse." And as far as "I'm moving to Europe," if you think Obama is 'socialist' well Europe is not for you. Also it's not easy being an expat, ok?



Sunsets before 4pm

I get it, I live on the same line of latitude as Moscow, we're pretty far north. That doesn't mean I like leaving work in the pitch black or night.


....I'm a bit bitchy, can you tell?

Obam-ha-ha

A little political levity for this Monday.

You can find an abridged version (without Fox News scroll) here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7675927.stm

PPFA: McCain on Women's Health

"Just again, the example of the eloquence of Sen. Obama. He's 'health for the mother.' You know, that's been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything. That's the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, 'health.'"— Sen. John McCain, during presidential debate

Since when did women's health become extreme?

What's really extreme here is that John McCain doesn't understand that women's health matters.

What John McCain said Wednesday night, in front of millions of viewers, was belittling to women. He not only mocked Barack Obama for supporting women's health, he mocked women across the country. The debate last night was just the most vivid example of what we've known all along: John McCain is out of touch on women's health.

The simple fact is that we need a president who wants to protect and promote women's health, not ridicule it. If John McCain doesn't understand that, then he's not prepared to govern this country.

Remember, this is not the only example where John McCain doesn't get it when it comes to women's health.

Just a couple months back, McCain had the deer-in-the-headlights look, and couldn't answer whether he thought it was fair that insurance companies that cover Viagra should also cover birth control.

And, remember the time when McCain was asked whether he thought condoms helped stopped the spread of HIV? McCain's response, "You've stumped me." And there's more.

Let's count the ways that John McCain is out of touch on women's health and women's rights:

*He's voted 125 times against women's health.
*He wants to overturn Roe v. Wade.
*He opposes funding to prevent unintended and teen pregnancies.
*He opposes requiring health care plans to cover birth control.
*He opposes equal pay legislation, saying it wouldn't do "anything to help the rights of women."
*He's proposed a health care plan that will be worse for women.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, gets it. Obama talked about commonsense proposals to prevent unintended pregnancy. He talked about a woman, along with her family and her doctor, deciding what is best for her health care. The simple fact is that Barack Obama is a passionate advocate for women's rights, and has a long and consistent record of standing up for women's health care. As president, he will improve access to quality health care for women, support and protect a woman's right to choose, support comprehensive sex education to keep our young people healthy and safe, and invest in prevention programs, including family planning services and breast cancer screenings.

Watch McCain's statement during the debate...



© 2008 Planned Parenthood® Action Fund, Inc

Sweet Victory for Obama

This past week Obama came and spoke at Ault Park, where NBH and I got married in August. I really wish I could have been there. I am probably the only person walking around Glasgow with an Obama button on her jacket and I miss being able to really get involved in the election.

Every year Busken's, an amazing bakery in Cincinnati, sells cookies with the Republican and Democratic candidate's faces on them as a sort of preliminary election poll. They've been doing it since 1992 and supposedly have predicted every Presidential win. I really hope so and I'd love some cookies sent my way please!