We Remember

In my small elementary school, we always had some sort of Thanksgiving celebration. Instead of bagged lunches or Marriott Food Service mush, the school would put together a potluck lunch with turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, canned cranberry sauce. The festive decorations included turkeys shaped by little handprints and stuck to the gym walls with double sided tape, streamers, and little cartoon pilgrims and indians made of cardboard that you can probably order from a magazine sent specifically to teachers for specifically this purpose. We also got to wear either a handmade pilgrim's hat or a band of construction paper with feathers in the back to represent the members of the original feast, I was an Indian if you were wondering.

Now, I'm a picky eater and it was even worse as a child because I was trapped in my pickiness by lack of autonomy, which sucked. I didn't care for pressed turkey, salty gravy and watery-from-a-pouch mashed potatoes and maybe this disdain for our "feast" food made this cold pit form. It's the clearest damn memory but one particular year I just couldn't eat, I felt out of place and slightly queasy and uncomfortable with the whole celebration. I couldn't wait to escape the gym/cafeteria but I didn't have a real reason to leave if I was stopped by a lunch monitor so I stayed.

I remember talking about Girl Scouts and waving to Miss Krystoviac and realizing that other people were actually enjoying this celebration, with it's lax rules of changing tables (normally prohibited) and the presence of teachers normally teaching during this period who came to nip up some turkey and have a quick gossip.

This is the most uncomfortable moment I can ever remember having. I was an outsider during an event designed to mimic a feast of togetherness.

Now, after enduring a class which focused on the plight of the Native Americans after the relations turned sour with the Europeans, maybe I was right to be uncomfortable. I was 19 by the time I was educated on the atrocities committed against our land's native people. Call me naive, call me ignorant but I just didn't know.

I learned all about the systematic, purposeful slaughter of the Native Americans mostly through surviving first-hand letters and diaries of monks and these monks didn't pull any punches or leave out any details. It hurt to read this stuff, I felt betrayed by my lack of knowledge and the thing that horrified me the most was my age. How, after all the Thanksgiving celebrations I'd gone through, had nobody mentioned this. As a kid we were fed a story line that went something like this: The pilgrims and Indians sit down and have a nice feast, which is good, because otherwise those pilgrims would've starved. Trading with those nice Indians brought them knowledge of this New World, how to survive. Now we live here, the end.

So, starting this Thanksgiving, I'm going to start remembering and sharing more of the story. When we go around the table and tell what we are thankful for, I'm going to tell my family an anecdote about how blankets infected with smallpox were sent to Native Americans as a gift, and I'm thankful for knowing this happened so that I can remember it.

A simple remembrance in one person being passed on to seven more. An acknowledgment of the horrors our Natives endured and a thankfulness that they are still here today.

Salivating...

1. Tonight I'm dining with a Lola fan, Beth. I'm going to give my Matogarzella foccacia one more tweaking tonight before unveiling it for a large crowd at Italian Night (#3). I'm going to pair my yeasty-wonder with stir-fry veggies and some tortelleni, not to impress my dinner date but because it sounds real good. Jeez, what a gracious hostess...

2. On Wednesday there is a Dylan tribute concert at Linnemanns in Riverwest. My famous second cousin and my father will be playing there, I'm skipping half my class and I'm going! I normally would count this as the most exciting thing to happen on my Wednesday: 20 bands! great cause! Bob Dylan songs! my family doin' some singing! BUT then I think about what awaits me after this concert... Upon returning home, I get to help my mama cook a Thanksgiving feast with lots of delicious meat-free recipes that I can't wait to try out: dilled green beans, cornbread, chard ravioli salad, golden-crusted brussel sprouts? I'm about to nut in my pants.

3. On Saturday, Meg and I are hosting Italian Night, in which she makes a few pans of meaty lasagna, and I make a pan of meatless lasagna with cottage AND ricotta cheese AND green pepper AND onion AND a few dollops of spinach. We'll whip up some salad a la Olive Garden, throw together an Oreo cheescake and round II of Matogarzella focaccia (hopefully prefected by then, crossing fingers!) and we'll have "food so good, it make you wanna slap yo mama!"

These three chow-days have got me so pumped! I can't wait to make a huge mess in the kitchen and hopefully have lots of glorious food emerge from the banging of pots, the "helping" of Lola and the swearing and laughter of yours truly. Tee hee, I sure love food.

Fastidious Lo

Lola is very different from me. Yes, we both think other people getting injured (we're talking a sharp blow to the funny bone, we're not sadistic!) is extremely funny. We both like cartoons like the BackYardigans. We both smile at men, a lot. BUT, Lo has some very girl-girl qualities that I lack. It might be that I have plenty of masculine qualities (read: low voice, ironic sense of humor, no girly squealing, no-strings mentality) and she's the normal one, I've no idea.

Some of these traits are ok. She doesn't like wind blowing her hair around. I enjoy the windows down, even far into the winter (with the heat BLASTING) but it's no big thing, when Lo's in the car, windows up, air on. Mildly annoying, but do-able.

She loves gaudy shit in her hair. My mom tells me I was attracted to the full-out sequins EVERYTHING during my 80's childhood. Ok, maybe she'll grow out of it. When she comes home from Tee's parent's with four pounds of ribbon, clips and do-dads in her hair, I inwardly groan but no harm done.

She hates poop. We're still trying to work with this one. Not that I love it or anything but her reaction to poop can get messy...

She hates being dirty. This kid will start taking off her shirt after a minuscule splash of juice gets on it, outside, in November, in Wisconsin. See also: batshit crazy idea. This still isn't horrible, some people must be clean. I don't, but I get it.

The deal-breaker is with traditionally "icky" things. I like slimy things. Scratch that, I LOVE slimy things. Not slimy edible things like raw calamari, more like fish and worms. Catching frogs in the smelly shoreline muck, hurray! Things that slither, my favorite! I get a goofy-ass grin and tingles from things that crawl like crabs and inchworms and tarantulas. Things that not everyone likes. Guess who else doesn't like these things?

I'll embrace my daughter's uniqueness, I DON'T want a clone copy of myself! Shit, I even buy her babies and hair things sometimes because I know it makes her happy but I'm going to take her fishing and I'm going to get her a pair of thigh-high waders and we're doing to catch us some slimy animals. We're going to visit the reptile room regularly during her childhood and we're going to buy some reptile friends.

I won't have a daughter who screams at the sight of a spider if it kills me! This weekend, I'm going to take Lo and Tee to get some firebelly newts, my first step towards converting Lola to the slimy side.

Postscript: Not ALL creepy-crawlies give me the jollies... Keep your centipedes at home people, or I'll unleash my inner girly-girl and jump onto your back until you "killitkillitKILLIT!"

Oh, My Achin' Tear Ducts!

I've been really weepy lately. Not in a droopy, moping weeping-willow sort of a way but more like a crazy pregnant hormone kind of way. Which thankfully isn't possible. Hurray for IUD's!

I attended my Literature about the Morality of War class on Wednesday and we had two speakers who came to tell us about their experiences in the Vietnam War. Ouch. For the record, I am against war. Easy to say right? I can also say that I'm still supporting our soldiers but also, it's easy to make a statement and a whole different thing to "live it" if you will. So now is when I make a confession: for all that I say I support the soldiers, I scoff at the magnetic "support the troops" bumper stickers. I inwardly sneer at recruitment officers. When I hear how someone enlisted because "it's their duty" I roll my frickin eyes.

Passive-aggressive bad attitude? Oh no doubt. But I was raised in a family that actually would've moved to Canada if any the children were drafted and any mention of joining the military was met with a vehement discouragement. So with that back story, I listened to these two men talk about their war experience:

One had a florid face and was loud and outspoken about his service. He was traumatized from the horrors witnessed and came back to a different America from the one he left. The lack of news halfway across the world kept him in the dark about the social revolution going on at home. He went from 70 degrees in Vietnam to 12 degrees in Chicago and got spat on leaving the train station. He couldn't understand the hatred people had for him, he was called a baby-killer, he couldn't get out of that uniform fast enough.

Now even me, with my inbred suspicion of all things military think that's overboard. Yeah, enlisting was dumb, volunteering for Vietnam while stationed in Germany originally was incredibly dumb but this is one of ours. Hate the war not the soldiers.

He also spoke of his family issues after returning home. He didn't talk about the war until 10 years ago. His guilt and and shame and disappointment and silence eventually turned him to booze, he admitted to our entire class that he became a mean drunk. His wife divorced him, he thought of suicide. The one thing that really stuck with me was that "this ordeal he went through was 30 years ago, why couldn't he just get over it?" and "how could he come out and talk about it now, 30 years later and blame his problems on it when it's been so long."

He created a war veteran's outreach program, kicked the alcoholism and now speaks and speaks eloquently about his experience. I bit my cheek three times in 30 minutes trying not to cry.

The other speaker was shy and nervous and had the nicest smile I've ever seen. If he were 30 years younger... Back on track, he was a chaplain for the Marines and spoke more on moral issues. He was enrolled in a Morality PhD program at a liberal school in Chicago when he decided to go to Vietnam. When asked his reasons by his incredulous colleagues, he said "I just want to help people." My kind of man.

He spoke about commanders having to make difficult decisions on whether to evacuate displaced villagers via helicopter or abandon them to certain slaughter. (He abandoned them as they might have had enemy placements in the group.) He spoke of a time when his father went to a six grade class with him and listened to him speak. When a child asked how his service affected the family back home, he redirected the question to his dad. His father mentioned a time when the family was watching the news and heard a chaplain in his battalion was killed but no name was mentioned. He discussed the uncertainty they lived in, the fear they had and the shameful hope that it wasn't their son, but someone else's. Shit, I was crying now.

Those two men really hit home that people are out there suffering from these experiences, that even if they come back whole and alive, they come back changed. I think that I've always been preoccupied by the returning-hero fairytale where men go off, do manly, war-like deeds and come home to their fresh-out-of-high school wives and make zillions of army brats. Cliche, cliche, cliche but I think that's the pit I've been falling into. One encounter with charismatic speakers won't undo a lifetime of anti-military conditioning but it can make me think things over...and cry.

Making the Switch

It would be difficult being the mother of this child. Difficult choices. More on this later.

What's All the Eggcitement About? har har

My St. Paul weekend was great. I ate overpriced cafe food, hit up a record/clothing/head shop and generally indulged my inner hedonist. There was plenty of outfit changing, hair cuts, whiskey, pipes, acorn squash (with brown sugar), sleeping and a complete lack of showers! A very fine weekend indeed.

To radically change directions, I've been contemplating becoming an egg donor. (Can you be an egg "donor" if you get paid? I guess I'm still donating said egg to another couple but if there's payment does it lose it's meaning? I guess the extraction is somewhat painful and the screening process is time-comsuming, is it a cop-out if I view the payment as "compensation?" Why do I feel guilty for even thinking about receiving money for this process, it is my egg after all and it's coming out of my body... Ahhh, calm down!)

Ever since I became of fan of Julie's blog and read her entire archived history and laughed and cried and sighed and sympathised and cheered with her about her fertility challenges, I've thought about the good I could do in this process. I could also get about 3 grand which could go into the house down-payment fund... Or it could get me through multiple semesters... Or it could hang out and wait til Lola or I decide to take up a hobby that deals with band saws, nail guns or blowtorches...

BUUUUUUTTTT... on the other hand, while I'm considering how wonderful it would be if my "donation" ended up completing a family and realizing somebody's dream of becoming a mother, my neurotic little mind starts ticking.

How could I not be curious as to what a person with half my genetic makeup is like. I would want to know if my genes dominated, is the child's hair curly? Does he or she have smallish almond eyes? What about those baby hairs that never grow right at the hairline? If it's a girl, does she have the same personality quirks as me and Lo? I feel like I should warn the prospective parents that in my family, we get real cranky, real fast if we're not fed on time, be aware. In short, I feel like I might get to emotionally attached to "my egg" and the genetics associated.

And then, when my mom sees the flyer I brought home from school, she says, "What if that child and Lola grow up someday and met and fall in love and never know they're related." Oh, thanks Mom, now I'm worrying about some crazy Lifetime Movie plot come to real life, my life, Lo's life...

But then I come full-circle and think about the good things I could do with that money, I could invest it for Lola's schooling. I could give my child a solid start while helping someone have one of their own. Plus, we Llanases are a healthy bunch, we make exceptionally cute children and it's really something I believe in.

Will I do it?

Christmas is Coming, the Goose is Getting Fat tra la la...

Oh poor blog. With such a badass name, an unsuspecting reader might expect sharp wit and humor, analytical debates on politics and cutting edge technological reviews. Instead, they find a Christmas List:

Lola: baby legs, a painting (or a print to be more specific b/c her Mama's too poor to afford the original) that somehow contains the moon, another favorite topic of discussion these days.

Tee: Terry Brooks books, still waiting on a list.

Megan: record wall things, a 50's "malt shoppe" CD

Mari/Ashley: lip stuff, mirrors, maybe some buttons (ETSY stuff)

Mom: UNKNOWN! - possibly a mini-vacation with Dad, split costs with siblings

Dad: Mudcrutch CD

Corrina - bag or go in for a pair of shoes (red patent or snakeskin Dansko's)

Pete - something off his list

Jessica - Bakewise, something off her list

Nelly - new earring for newly pierced ear, see Pete.

Chad - my favorite present of all, the gift of music. Burn a bunch of CDs for him of all genres so he doesn't listen to talk radio constantly. Buy a little CD case and present present.

Myself - bright and shining banana yellow 16GB Ipod Nano, to buy purchased tomorrow. Jeez, I'm so spoiled.

Tee's parents - NOTHING, know why? Because I'm not the girlfriend! So the impossible job of shopping for people with no interests besides indulging every self-interest no longer falls on me. Tra fucking la la la. This X-Mas will be goooooood!

Royboy - Etsy butt-tray

Monkey - new fleece cat whip toy, a favorite since kittenhood.

That's all I've got for today. Lo is at work with me and she's currently on the floor looking at a book/toy called "Granny's Purse." She's picking out the pictures and naming our family members and nothing is more important right now than joining her on the rug to discuss whether that picture resembles Nanny's Baby Kitty or Satan Mac more.

Chiao, wish me luck in St. Paul this weekend!

Oh Beautous Wednesday

First Connecticut Same-Sex Couple Marries
Judge Gives Final Ruling Allowing Gay Marriage

http://www.wfsb.com/news/17962737/detail.html

POSTED: 9:39 am EST November 12, 2008
UPDATED: 11:29 am EST November 12, 2008


HARTFORD, Conn. -- Less than two hours after a court ruling became official, Connecticut first same-sex wedding has taken place.

Peg Oliveira and Jennifer Vickery, of New Haven, got married Wednesday next to New Haven City Hall, near a farmer's market. The couple said their vows and exchanged rings in a brief ceremony led by Judge F. Herbert Gruendel.

State Rep. To Be Among First Gay Marriages

Wednesday morning Judge Jonathan Silbert entered the final judgment, allowing for same-sex couples to marry in Connecticut.

State Rep. Beth Bye and her partner Tracy Wilson told Eyewitness News Tuesday night that they were hoping to be the first to turn their civil union into a legal marriage.

Wilson, a high school teacher and town historian, said she and Bye have been together for more than six years.

"We are very happy to join the world of the married -- the word has meaning, and it has meaning to us," she said. "We feel so lucky to be in Connecticut right now."

Only Connecticut and Massachusetts have legalized gay marriage. The unions were legal in California until last week when voters passed an amendment banning same-sex marriage. A few other states in the country have followed suit. Connecticut voters rejected a ballot question last week proposing a constitutional convention to amend the state's constitution, dealing a major blow to opponents of same-sex marriage.

State Rep. and co-chairman of the Connecticut General Assembly's Judiciary Committee, Mike Lawlor, lectured at the University of New Haven Tuesday night on the subject. He said it's obvious when he speaks about the issue in front of a classroom that people's attitudes are changing.

"I think that speaks a lot about us as a state -- we are open-minded. We embrace and show happy couples should have advantages. Now gay people will share what straight people have enjoyed for many, many years," he said.

Many Connecticut couples planned to join Bye and Wilson in being among the first to take advantage of the new law Wednesday

Some Connecticut couples planned to celebrate by immediately marching to New Haven's City Hall to get marriage licenses. At least one ceremony was scheduled Wednesday morning on the New Haven green.

The health department had new marriage applications printed that reflect the change. Instead of putting one name under "bride" and the other under "groom," couples will see two boxes marked "bride/groom/spouse."

Joseph Camposeo, Manchester's town clerk and president of the Connecticut Town Clerks Association, said they were notified by e-mail shortly after 9:30 a.m. to start issuing the licenses.

"The feedback I'm getting from other clerks is that we're all at the ready, but no one really has a sense yet of what kind of volume we're going to get," he said.

Connecticut's Supreme Court ruled 4-3 in favor of allowing gay marriage in an Oct. 10 decision spurred by a lawsuite filed by eight couples challenged a state law prohibiting gay marriages. Several of the suit's plaintiffs wept openly as Silbert made his ruling Wednesday.

Today is historic legally and culturally and socially," said Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who attended the hearing. "My office vigorously defended state law, including the civil unions statute, but we have to put aside our past positions and personal opinions to make sure the law is vigorously enforced and defended and the court's decision is implemented as smoothly as possible."

According to studies performed out of UCLA, there are more than 9,500 same-sex couples in Connecticut.

The study said that if Connecticut follows a similar pattern to Massachusetts, about 3,000 same-sex couples will marry in the next year and 4,700 will likely wed after three years.

Cheers Connecticut!

Once Upon a Time...

I've been bummed out lately.

Life is going fine, Lo learned how to say "ho ho ho, merry christmas" yesterday, she's wearing her skull and crossbones (arghh) baby legs, sneaking into my bed to sleep, normal stuff.

Tee and I are getting along famously, I'm still resisting the relationship thing though. We got the infamous "So are you guys back together?" this weekend, followed by a long, painful, unsuccessful attempt to pretend like I didn't hear the question. Tee allowed me to answer, to which I gave a "no." But, he requested a X-mas list so he can't be too heartbroken.

Because the elections cleaned my clock, I'm going to tell a story instead of talking about the huge disappointment I feel about CALIFORNIA. Fuckers.

Once upon a time I had a baby named Lola. Because I was still a new mom and money was pretty tight, I decided to go back to work after two weeks of paid maternity leave instead of the four (1/2 unpaid) offered. Due to working for my brother-in-law, I had the perk of taking my baby with me. Initially I told my family co-workers that I would come in to help out for a few hours a day until I felt like I could handle full-force work and full-force momming.

Of course, in my chair and visible to all as the Office Queen Bee once again, the work piled up, people came by with questions they had to wait two freaking weeks (ex-que-say moi!) to ask me, and work came crashing down on my head.

This isn't to say Lola was neglected, no, she was situated on my chest, strapped to it by a length of stretchy orange material, either snoozing peacefully or drinking delicious mom-milk.

This went on for two weeks, still bleeding, not sleeping, crying because I couldn't fit into my favorite pants... One day, I'm meeting my parents, my siblings and my brother in law's family for a Mexican birthday dinner, running late, Lo is screaming her tiny fucking head off and I decide to be a good Samaritan.

Noticing the squad that always sits in the same parking lot, trying to catch people who disregard the change in speed from 45 to 30, I see a car coming the opposite way, and coming fast.

"Ho, ho," thought my sleep-deprived brain, "I'm going to save this poor sucka!" So I flashed my brights his way and felt pretty smug doing it. Mother Etta, saving the world's unwitting speeders from certain ticketage...

And immediately said "oh shit," once I realized the car behind the speeder was also a squad, who was currently whipping the wide, imperial nose of his Crown Vic in a quick U-turn. You know how cops follow you a bit? I think they're probably trained to do that specifically to make us sweat, let the asshole driver stew a little bit...

Sweating I was, along with sleep-deprived, late and stressed with sides of screaming child, hard-as-rock breastfeeding boobs, insufficient iron levels (always a bad idea for me) and I did it. I cried. I started before I even got pulled over, a few tears slipping out which I angerly rubbed away. No, I will NOT be that woman! I WILL NOT be the "crier."

By the time the officer got to my door, I was full-out sobbing, apologizing for sobbing, trying to explain that I was so tired and in the meantime Lo was still screaming. The officer said he understood, he just wanted to make sure everything was ok, was everything ok?

"Nooooo" sob sob sob, "I'm so fucking tired, this baby hates me, I hate my job and I want Mexican food"

He nodded a bit, asked me if I would be ok to drive home (yes) and practically fled. You know when cars stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, and the pedestrian "fake runs?" That was the cop, only instead of walking with the same speed but making it look like a run, he was running but trying to make it look like a walk.

Moral of the story: stay home and enjoy your baby as long as you possibly can, boredom is better than temporary insanity!

That Church Has Balls

Holocaust survivors to Mormons: Stop baptisms of dead Jews
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/11/baptizing.dead.jews.ap/index.html?iref=24hours

NEW YORK (AP) -- Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice.

Ernest Michel, left, and Roman Kent look at a list of Holocaust victims who were posthumously baptized.

Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say they are making changes to their massive genealogical database that will make it more difficult for names of Holocaust victims to be entered for posthumous baptism by proxy, a rite that has been a common Mormon practice for more than a century.
But Ernest Michel, honorary chairman of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors, said that is not enough. At a news conference in New York City on Monday, he said the church also must "implement a mechanism to undo what you have done."
"Baptism of a Jewish Holocaust victim and then merely removing that name from the database is just not acceptable," said Michel, whose parents died at Auschwitz. He spoke on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi-incited riots against Jews.
"We ask you to respect us and our Judaism just as we respect your religion," Michel said in a statement released ahead of the news conference. "We ask you to leave our six million Jews, all victims of the Holocaust, alone, they suffered enough."
Michel said talks with Mormon leaders, held as recently as last week, have ended. He said his group will not sue, and that "the only thing left, therefore, is to turn to the court of public opinion."
In 1995, Mormons and Jews inked an agreement to limit the circumstances that allow for the proxy baptisms of Holocaust victims. Ending the practice outright was not part of the agreement and would essentially be asking Mormons to alter their beliefs, church Elder Lance B. Wickman said Monday in an interview with reporters in Salt Lake City.
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"We don't think any faith group has the right to ask another to change its doctrines," Wickman said. "If our work for the dead is properly understood ... it should not be a source of friction to anyone. It's merely a freewill offering."
Michel's decision to unilaterally end discussion of the issue through a news conference leaves the church uncertain about how to proceed, Wickman said.
Baptism by proxy allows faithful Mormons to have their ancestors baptized into the 178-year-old church, which they believe reunites families in the afterlife.
Using genealogy records, the church also baptizes people who have died from all over the world and from different religions. Mormons stand in as proxies for the person being baptized and immerse themselves in a baptismal pool.
Only the Jews have an agreement with the church limiting who can be baptized, though the agreement covers only Holocaust victims, not all Jewish people. Jews are particularly offended by baptisms of Holocaust victims because they were murdered specifically because of their religion.
Michel suggested that posthumous baptisms of Holocaust victims play into the hands of Holocaust deniers.
"They tell me, that my parents' Jewishness has not been altered but ... 100 years from now, how will they be able to guarantee that my mother and father of blessed memory who lived as Jews and were slaughtered by Hitler for no other reason than they were Jews, will someday not be identified as Mormon victims of the Holocaust?" Michel said Monday.
Wickman said the practice in no way impinges upon a person's "Jewishness, or their ethnicity, or their background."
Under the agreement with the Holocaust group, Mormons could enter the names of only those Holocaust victims to whom they were directly related. The church also agreed to remove the names of Holocaust victims already entered into its massive genealogical database.
Church spokesman Otterson said the church kept its part of the agreement by removing more than 260,000 names from the genealogical index.
But since 2005, ongoing monitoring of the database by an independent Salt Lake City-based researcher shows both resubmissions and new entries of names of Dutch, Greek, Polish and Italian Jews.
The researcher, Helen Radkey, who has done contract work for the Holocaust group, said her research suggests that lists of Holocaust victims obtained from camp and government records are being dumped into the database. She said she has seen and recorded a sampling of several thousand entries that indicate baptisms had been conducted for Holocaust victims as recently as July.
Wickman said lists of names have been entered into the database by a small number of well-meaning members who were acting "outside of policy." He said that church monitors have identified and removed 42,000 names from the database on their own, and that the church welcomes research from others.
Church officials say a new version of the database, called New Family Search, is being tested overseas and should reduce the problems. In the works for six years, the new database will discourage the submission of large lists of unrelated individuals. It will also separate names intended for temple rites from those submitted purely for genealogical purposes, the church states in a letter sent to Michel on Nov. 6.
"The names of any Holocaust victims we can identify in the database are to be flagged with a special designation -- not available for temple ordinances," the letter states.
The church also proposes jump-starting a monitoring committee formed in 2005 to review database entries. The committee has met just once since 2005.
In May, the Vatican ordered Catholic dioceses worldwide to withhold member registries from Mormons so that Catholics could not be baptized.

My laughter on a cloudy Tuesday morning.

I'd Rather Be Fishing...

Why Arizona and Florida? Why are you so threatened by a couple much like yourselves 2, 7, 12 years ago, who just want a marriage certificate? You're denying people the thrill of walking down the aisle to join their beloved's side with a shiver of excitement that millions have the right to do already. You're denying countless mothers a chance to be the mother of the bride on her little girl's wedding day. There will never be a hunk of wedding cake in these folks' freezer, no bachelorette parties, no recognition that they've chosen to spend their lives with one person. Instead there's only the juvenile moniker: girlfriend or boyfriend. Who want's to refer to their 40 year old life partner as girlfriend? Why undo the progress that's been made? Why treat people like second-class citizens, do they not love as you do?

Of course I'm thrilled with the results of the election, I'm glad the insanity of the Bush administration is over but when I saw the statewide bans on gay marriage passed, my heart dropped. I haven't cried at work like this since I was in the early stages of labor. I'm heartbroken, it's just a fucking shame.

In other news, Obama won! Hurray!

And for future Etta: when they predict all the lines and hysteria and get to the polls NOW NOW NOW because it's gonna be SOOOOO busy... your past self voted in 5 minutes last election. Don't let them scare you girl.

I've been the soul of graciousness today, I even went so far as to buy the office Republicans a shortbread cookie at Panera today to show that all the shit I had to endure during the campaigns weren't taken to heart. The racist jokes were but their misplaced beliefs aren't. Shit, everyone has problems right?

My big problem right now is I can't get over the heartlessness of these bans and I have to type up my homework for class tonight. Shit.