And Sometimes You Win

From amNY.com

Lesbian, Village eatery settle lawsuit
The Associated Press
4:16 PM EDT, May 13, 2008
A popular Greenwich Village restaurant has settled a lawsuit with a lesbian who said a bouncer chased her out of the women's bathroom and forced her to leave because she looked masculine.

The Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund announced the settlement Tuesday on behalf of Khadijah Farmer.
The Caliente Cab Company, while denying the allegations, has agreed to pay $35,000. Caliente also will add gender identity to its non-discrimination policy; amend its employee handbook with a section on customer restroom use; adopt a gender-neutral employee dress code; and train workers on the new policies.

Farmer said the incident occurred last June 24, after she attended New York City's annual Gay Pride march.

"The Caliente Cab Company has been a prominent member of the West Village for many years," the company said in a statement.

"An enlightened attitude and progressive thinking is woven into Caliente's culture and in its efforts to promote the social welfare of all members of the community."

"Caliente, while disputing the portrayal of the events as reported by the plaintiff, is happy the matter is resolved amicably without engaging in protracted litigation," the company said. "We believe the changes implemented will serve all the members of the community well in the years to come."

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

For those of you who aren't privy to the foibles of NY politicians

BY MELISSA GRACE AND TINA MOORE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Monday, May 12th 2008, 4:00 AM
Vito Fossella built a career as a staunch "family values" pol, polishing his image in his predominantly Catholic district with a string of anti-gay votes.
He even shuns his gay sister, Victoria Fossella, refusing to go to family events if she and her partner attend, a source close to the family said.
His double life is now exposed with the news he has a 3-year-old love child with a divorced Air Force colonel, and critics are calling him a hypocrite.
"Has the Catholic Church now sanctioned adultery?" asked John Adrian, a 64-year-old gay activist on Staten Island.
"That just makes him that more hypocritical."
As congressman, Fossella voted to prohibit any funding for joint adoptions by gay couples.
He has voted for the Marriage Protection Amendment, a federal prohibition on gay marriage.
He also demanded housing funds be held back from San Francisco unless it repealed its domestic partnership law.
Victoria Fossella is openly gay and marched in Staten Island's gay pride parade with her partner, according to an article published in Gay City News.
She adopted twins who were delivered by her partner, according to the story.
"She is known in the gay community and she is known in the gay community as an out lesbian," Adrian said.
A man who answered the door yesterday at Victoria Fossella's house refused to talk to a reporter.
"Nobody in the gay community likes [Vi

Mothers and daughter

My Aunt Julie who will be celebrating her 90th birthday this August. We're planning a big party in Girard Ohio or nearby. She was like a second mother to me. We lived on a family compound and shared backyards and had an orchard and lots of space to play outside. Cherry trees with beautiful white cherries to pick and eat off the trees, Mulberries, peaches, quince, apples, Italian prune plums on and on. My aunt is the and always has been the peacemaker. She still drives well!



My real mother who passed away in 1988 She was an enthusiastic smoker and died of lung cancer, although her father who only smoked a pipe also suffered the same fate. My mother worked her whole life, taking over the family store, shown below with her sister shown above, when my grandfather passed away cutting meat, and delivering to the neighboring farms. (this was pre-supermarkets.) My cousin Judy and I would sometimes go along sitting in the spare tire which served as the passenger seat 'smoking' candy cigarettes and playing. 
During the war, she worked in a muntions factory. First making bullets-she always said "keep your powder dry." But then taking a 'promotion' to secretary which paid less. Women's work.

My mother was intelligent although she never went to college, She was politically astute. She had a quick temper.



Me in front of the family store. We had huge snowstorms in Girard, Ohio which was in the lee of Lake Erie. Lake effect snow (or is it the windward side?) They closed the store when I was seven. After fits and starts I seem to have turned out ok.

Mothers Day proclamation by Julia Ward Howe

Here is Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation.

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have breasts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Chris Williamson enhanced my life

Friday Five-Gifts of the Spirit

The Peonies are at the Korean Market! And on my table.

FOR PENTECOST THIS WEEKEND:
FROM ACTS CHAPTER 2: 14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: "Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:17 " 'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. 18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. 19 I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. 20 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. 21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'


(My personal favorite in this passage is how Peter insists the men cannot be drunk because it's only 9:00 a.m.) (They should have talked to my father!)

Anyway, it's Pentecost and my very first Friday Five! Thinking about all the gifts of the spirit and what Peter said of the "last days"......

Have you or anyone you know

1. ...ever experienced a prophesy (vision or dream) that came true?
No not really. The dreams I've had-day dreams really-have taken hard work to for me to make them come true. I suppose the BL was a dream that came true, when I had all but given up on another relationship, then she showed up in an unlikely place and pursued ME! It was while I was working at NOW NYC (the founding chapter and BL was straight! yea right.)

2. ...dreamed of a stranger, then actually met them later?
Really, no.

3. ...seen a wonder in heaven? (including UFO's)
My parents did see one in the 50's in the sky above Ohio.

4. ...seen a "sign" on the earth?
Well, I see lots of signs in the opening of the tree buds of spring.

5. ...experienced knowledge of another language without ever having studied it?
Absolutely not. Not even when I studied it! Especially not.

Well...this was a quick FF.

Bainbridge Island Women in Black- A good Idea

Bainbridge Island Women in Black is part of an international network of women calling for peace and justice. Beginning in 1988, vigils in Jerusalem were organized by Palestinian and Jewish Israeli women to protest Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The network has spread to countries all over the world. Each group is autonomous, related to the others by the desire to end violence and by the way women stand, often in silent vigil, wearing black.

Women in Black Belgrade received the Millennium Peace Prize for Women, March 8, 1991, offered by International Alert, a global women’s awareness program, and the United Nations. Women in Black has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize, first by the Danish and Norwegian Parliamentarians and most recently, in 2003, by the American Friends Service Committee.

Women in Dialogue, and Commitment to Nonviolence: “You need us because we women are willing to sit together on the same side of the table and together look at our complex joint history, with the commitment and intention of not getting up until, in respect and reciprocity—we can get up together and begin our new history and fulfill our joint destiny” —Terry Greenblatt, Director of Bat Shalom (an Israeli women’s peace organization) and Maya Abu Daya, one of the founders of the Jerusalem Center for Women (a Palestinian peace organization which is formally linked with Bat Shalom), in an invitation that addressed a session of the United Nations Security Council.

The Deadly Nightshade

A favorite band of mine from the early 70's. I saw them many times at the Bottom Line in NYC. I think they came out of Smith College. Rumor has it they may be getting back together!

Holidays for today

Listenting to the news I discovered that today was "No Diet Day" and "Crepe Suzette Day." Curious, I looked up holidays on google and discovered that today has some other themes:

Childhood Depression Awareness Day
National Teacher Day
No Homework Day
Birthday - Sigmund Freud (physician)
I'd like to thank Sigmund personally, not for p*nis envy, but for starting to think about the mind. And I'd like to thank all my teachers!

Crepes Suzette (from the Food Network)

Crepes Suzette
5 navel oranges, juiced (about 1 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons orange liqueur, such as Grand Marnier (optional)
6 navel oranges, peeled and sectioned
1 orange, zested
1/2 cup grenadine
Basic Dessert Crepes, recipe follows
Vanilla ice cream
In a large skillet over high heat, bring the orange juice to a boil. Add the sugar, reduce to medium heat and simmer for 2 minutes.
Remove from heat and add the orange liqueur and orange sections. Set aside.
In a pot, combine the orange zest and grenadine. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 2 minutes. Set aside.
Working in batches, gently place a crepe into the pan holding the orange juice and orange sections. Leave for 1 minute to absorb some juice.
Using a narrow spatula, remove the crepe to a warm serving plate. Roll the crepe into a cylinder. Spoon on some orange sections. Using a fork, pick some orange zest from the grenadine syrup and distribute it over the crepe. Top with vanilla ice cream and serve immediately

Bat Mitzvah Journal Part III

Picture is a detail of the ceiling of  Temple Adat Shalom which looks like sails or the inside of a tent and is beautiful.

Well, the blessed event was lovely. The Bat Mitzvah girl did her parsha and more very well. She did her speech with such presence. BL and I looked swell in our new outfits.
The event including Oneg (lunch) took about 6 hours, the nap till the party. The party was festive with lots of food and lots of 13 y/o (adults.) It was held in a lovely restaurant in a government building in DC, so lots of security checks to get in. Some drama with an unruly guest, but I guess that sometimes happens. In all, it was well planned, I think the BMG was very happy.

I'm writing this, as I slipped out of the out of town guests brunch, more eating. I'm overstuffed
and won't be eating much this week! Lots of catching with BL's relatives from out of town. I'm all caught up and kind o shy. So...blogging.

These things are as big as the ordinary wedding-or bigger. I wonder how the parents can afford two such events in a child's lifetime and still save up for college? This is not directed to these particular parents but just a general comment?