A 17 Year Old Hero from Vermont

Kate Clinton on Rush Linbaugh

She was on our cruise and is so funny!

Friday Five Signs of Hope

Fuzzy Tree Bud

Songbird posted this Friday Five:
"My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. Song of Solomon 2:10-13

In the late, late winter, as the snow begins to recede here in Maine, we begin to look almost desperately for signs of spring, signs of hope that the weather has turned and a new day is on the horizon. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, Easter and Spring twine inextricably, the crocuses and daffodils peeking through the Earth as we await the risen Christ.

Share with us five signs of hope that you can see today or have experienced in the past."
1.I love spring and I also love looking for signs of new life everywhere I go.
2. Unfortunately I got out of the subway this morning in Brooklyn and it was snowing :-(
3. I have a picture taken with my iphone of a fuzzy tree bud on the next street from my office taken about a month ago.
4. I love the tiny green leaves that are popping up on the privet hedges. They seem to be the earliest in the New York area.
5.One of my favorite things is seeing the trees when the leaves are all out, but all tiny. Like a green haze in the sky...

This Was My Subway

But I Was Too Early!

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Corrective Rape

I heard about this on NPR and wanted to get out the shocking news:

From the Telegraph.co.uk
"A report by the international NGO ActionAid, backed by the South African Human Rights Commission, said the horrific crimes against lesbians were going unrecognised by the state and unpunished by the legal system.
The report called for South Africa's criminal justice system to recognise the rapes as hate crimes in an attempt to force police to take action over the rising tide of violence.

The ferocity of the attack became clear in April last year when Eudy Simelane, former star of South Africa's national female football squad, became one of the victims. Miss Simelane, and equality rights campaigner and one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian, was gang-raped and brutally beaten before being stabbed 25 times in the face, chest and legs.
But scores more women have been deliberately targeted for rape, the Guardian reports.
"Every day I am told that they are going to kill me, that they are going to rape me and after they rape me I'll become a girl," Zakhe Sowello from Soweto, told the paper. "When you are raped you have a lot of evidence on your body. But when we try and report these crimes nothing happens, and then you see the boys who raped you walking free on the street."
Research shows 86 per cent of black lesbians from the Western Cape live in fear of sexual assault. Triangle, a gay rights organisation, said it deals with up to 10 new cases of "corrective rape" every week.
"What we're seeing is a spike in the numbers of women coming to us having been raped and who have been told throughout the attack that being a lesbian was to blame for what was happening to them," Vanessa Ludwig, the chief executive at Triangle, told the paper.
Support groups claim an increasingly macho political environment led to inaction over attacks.
A statement released by South Africa's national prosecuting authority said: "While hate crimes – especially of a sexual nature – are rife, it is not something that the South African government has prioritised as a specific project."
Human rights and equality campaigners are hoping that the public outrage and disgust at Miss Simelane's death and the July trial of the three men accused of her rape and murder will help put an end to the spiralling violence."

Violence against women and in particular lesbians just never ends 

Friday Five Mid Lent Crisis

Sophia said "A pastor of my grad school parish once gave a fascinating reflection, at about this mid-point in the season, called "How to Survive the Mid-Lent Crisis"! As I recall, his main point was that by halfway through the season we have often found it very challenging to live up to our original plans....But, he suggested--on the analogy of the healing and reframing of our life plans that can happen during a mid-*life* crisis--that that can be even more fruitful.

So here's an invitation to check in on the state of your spirit midway through "this joyful season where we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery with mind and heart renewed" (Roman Missal). Hopefully there's a good deal of grace, and not too much crisis, in your mid-Lenten experience!"

1. Did you give up, or take on, anything special for Lent this year?
Well, since I just got back from a fabulous cruise I guess you know the answer to this. Actually, March is the end of our Fiscal Year at work, so work is particularly hectic as we prove to our overseers at the Federal Government that we are training, placing and keeping in employment for 90 days individuals with disabilities, by closing cases in large numbers. This is a bi-yearly event-March and September, State and Federal. The worker bees are tracking down lost clients and recording the information. It's bad this year as many people are having trouble finding and keeping work, and people with disabilities are usually at the bottom of the barrel.

2. Have you been able to stay with your original plans, or has life gotten in the way?
Life always gets in the way.

3. Has God had any surprising blessings for you during this Lent?
Not yet. Still waiting...

4. What is on your inner and/or outer agenda for the remainder of Lent and Holy Week?
Well, we just made our Passover plans, and I just made my Good Friday plans.

5. Where do you most long to see resurrection, in your life and/or in the world, this Easter?
Beloved and I are in couples therapy to deal with our "lack of space issue." I hope to see some resolution here that won't break the bank or put us too far outside of the city.

My Olivia Experience-Part !

IGuana be your friend!

When I was a young lesbian in the early 70's, I walked into Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore-just closed last week due to the economy-then owned by founder Craig Rodwell. In those days he didn't have many books to sell, so I knew most of his stock, but I visited often because I liked him and I was always hopeful that there would be something new. That day there was a record album. It was by Meg Christian. Who's this? I bought it and took it home and it was a lesbian singing songs about lesbians, mostly folk songs and one very funny song about being in love with her gym teacher. This was the first record that the Olivia Collective put out. They made a lot of records after that. Chris Williamson's "The Changer and the Change," was my personal favorite. I can't remember them all. Later on someone mentioned to Judy Dlugacz, a member of the collective that was dissolving by that time, that it would be nice to be able to take a vacation with just women. With that suggestion, Olivia Cruises was born.

We just returned from our second cruise. Judy charters Holland America ships, resorts, or river barges and markets to the lesbian community, though we had mothers and daughters and sisters and several straight couples on our trip. The entertainment, Arianna Huffington, Kate Clinton, Vicki Shaw, Renee Hicks etc is always fabulous, the parties are well done. What's different is that everyone is friendly. We traveled as a couple, but always had people to dine with, to talk to. We met people from all corners of America, Israel, Canada, Great Britain. We heard the most amazing stories, great and hair raising. One couple from Missouri told us about being in a Barnes and Noble-they were not 'obvious' in any way. They were confronted by a group of girls who told them to just stop being lesbians. It was not Gods way!  They were not wanted around here. Shocking stories!

Out of 1800 women I ran into one woman I knew in the early 70's in New York. She moved to Canada to be an architect and is now retired in Florida. I also ran into someone I used to work with at a volunteer counseling center in the early 90's. We'll stay in touch. We made some great new friends, too.

All in all it was a wonderful vacation. I'm sorry to be back. I want to go again!

Hasty Pudding Friday Five

Today I'm doing this Friday Five somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle, so if you never hear from me again... Also, when I do spell check, everything is wrong, because the spellchecker is checking for Dutch words. Sign in is Anmelden, Password is Nutzernamei, and keep me signed in is MERKEN (look that one up!)
I also cannot do a cut and paste so as I can remember this is all about puddings:
1. I love, love, love puddings. I have been eating too much of the Holland America Bread Pudding with hard sauce which is not hard, but soft and creamy and served warm. That's what I had for lunch yesterday-all of lunch.
2.Instant or cooked. Cooked of course. On a cold day-when I am alone, as Beloved would not approve, I cook up some Royal Pudding and eat at least one bowl right from the pan, still quite warm. My mother would add an egg yolk and you have to be careful but that really makes it better.
3. Neither. Tried corn pudding and I love corn and pudding but together, yucky. and Figgy? Fuggetaboutit!
4.Fingerpainted with it? Maybe as a very young child. But now I know what to do with pudding.
5 Mary Jane was upset that there were no raisins in her rice pudding. Very upsetting!
Holland America, Olivia Recipe for Bread Pudding to come in the next week if I don't loose it.
The 1800 lesbians of this fabulous ship say hello!

1,800 of My Closest Friends

We've been on our Olivia Cruise since Sunday and today we docked in Turks and Caicos. Last night we saw Kate Clinton-so smart funny, the night before, Arianne Huffington, so insighful. We've met some lovely women.
Puerto Rico tomorrow.
I wish you all were here!
Pictures when we return.

Friday Five Fork in the Road

"I am at a life-changing juncture. I do not know which way I will go, but I have been thinking about the times, people and events that changed my life (for good or ill) in significant ways. For today's Friday Five, share with us five "fork-in-the-road" events, or persons, or choices. And how did life change after these forks in the road?"

What an interesting topic! I am on vacation and this will be a FF on Sunday. We are about to board a cruise to the Caribbean, momentarily and I'm blogging from the hotel!
So five live changing forks in the road:
1. I lived. My fathers first wife died having an abortion and he wanted my mother to have one too. She didn't. This was before they were legal.
2. I lived again. When I was about 6, I was hospitalized for bleeding from the kidneys which was undiagnosed. It resolved itself, without help from the doctors.
3. A friend offered to take me to an Al Anon meeting and there was an AA meeting down the hall. I said "I think I belong there." That was over 21 years ago. I lived again.
4. I was working in summer stock in Ohio and a scenic designer called from NY called to say, "Come to New York, darling, I have a job for you." I did.
4. I took a job at NOW. I met Beloved.
So hows that for forks in the road?
Must go repack for the cruise.