Fried and convicted, p.10
Fried & Convicted, page 10
Let’s hope the efforts of groups like LPAC and our own CAMP Rehoboth and local PFLAG chapter can make a difference to them, and ease their way.
As for me, I’m glad to have the neon L on me. Light it up!
June 2015
THE OLD WOMAN AND THE SEA
Now I’m a hunter-gatherer.
I was in the Florida Keys with friends—me to spend three days in the pool and my mate to go deep-sea fishing with Captain Bob.
On the night before our first respective outings, my other half ordered the catch of the day at a local restaurant. Apparently, it was the catch of the previous Tuesday, as food poisoning ensued.
With no way the first mate could leave the condo the next morning, I offered up my non-fisherperson services instead. I couldn’t promise that my being crew would be better than fishing alone, and, frankly, it might prove way worse, but I was oddly game and so was the captain.
We saw a glorious sunrise, applied a thick coat of SPF 50 epoxy, and tore through the calm ocean at warp speed until we were, gulp, 39 miles offshore, no land in sight. I expected the inverted hull of the Poseidon or at least Leo DiCaprio to float by.
Alfred Hitchcock’s birds circled overhead, but I learned they signaled fish below. Captain Bob lowered the baited hooks and we trolled. Within minutes, my fishing rod began bouncing and I answered the call to “reel it in!” Sadly, I turned the reel handle backwards and it fell off. I avoided Bob’s gape-jawed gaze, scrambling to screw the handle back on so I could claim my still-hooked catch.
Back in business, I reeled the bright blue and yellow mahi-mahi in toward the boat. When it was swimming alongside, Bob grabbed the pole and told me to get the net into the water to scoop up the fish. I leaned over the side of the boat, stretching mightily, the net barely touching the waves. “Put it down in the water!” the captain urged. “I’m trying!” I hollered, poised for a Greg Louganis into the sea.
By the time Bob, who is six foot four, with a 747’s wingspan, realized I was height-challenged, he was holding the flapping fish up shoulder high and just airlifted it into the boat.
A fish gobbled the bait on his side of the vessel and Bob, going solo, reeled in and netted a second and then a third mahi, making it abundantly clear this was fated to be a one-man operation with a studio audience. I did my best to stay out of his way. We snagged plenty of too-small fish, tossing them back, but at regular intervals the royal “we” caught the big ones.
Working to remove the hooks, the captain drew lots of fish blood, turning the boat into a MASH unit. It took everything I had not to scream like a girl. We hosed down the ER and, given the hot sun, doused ourselves as well. It was my first ever wet T-shirt event.
Overall, we spent seven hours finding seagull-approved fishing spots. I only snagged the boat’s prop twice. Final count: 11 legal-sized mahi-mahi. The captain deserved a citation for overcoming somebody like me aboard.
I freely admit I fled to the pool when it came time to gut and clean the catch of the day. I am what I am. But our fresh fish dinner, prepared by our hostess, was astoundingly delicious. Adventure over, right? No.
After my spouse recovered and spent two more days catching mahi-mahi with the captain, we prepared to transport 35 plastic bags of flash frozen fish filets onto the plane home. We were to pack them in a cooler, with less than five pounds of dry ice and explain we packed the cooler ourselves. Simple.
While my mate returned the rental car, I wheeled my cooler to the baggage scale. “What’s in there?” asked the airline official.
“Mahi-mahi with less than five pounds of dry ice. I packed it myself,” I answered, obediently.
“Show me,” he said, “because lady, you know you are asking us to transport dry ice and it’s a dangerous gas.”
This guy was giving me dangerous gas. I untangled the cooler strap, lifted the lid, and expected the clerk to nod and send the seafood onto the conveyor belt.
“Take the dry ice out and weigh it,” he ordered.
You’re kidding? I considered, then rejected, offering him a fish-stick bribe. Then I gingerly extracted the dry ice sack, hoping it wouldn’t leak and cremate me as I carried it, like a live hand grenade, to the next scale. 4.4 pounds. Whew. I cautiously retraced my steps with the potential terrorist weapon and plopped it back in the cooler.
“That strap won’t keep the cooler safely closed,” the clerk said, tossing me a heavy roll of clear tape. “Tape it shut.”
Oh, if only I could wish him the same!
Then he watched, with great amusement, as I dropped to my knees, balanced the cooler on one shoulder, stretching the tape over, around and under the cooler multiple times, practically prostrate on the floor, flailing and grunting.
With the cooler wrapped like a mummy, I had no tool to cut the tape roll off. The stony-faced airport worker offered nothing, and we all know you can’t travel with so much as a nail file anymore. Desperate, this crouching tiger in the downward doggie position chewed the tape free. I’m sure the story made that night’s TSA happy hour.
But I’m pleased to report that the filets made it home to the freezer just fine. We’ve had a fish fry. My sunburn is healing. I’m secretly pleased with my deep-sea adventure. But when we run out of our personal catch, our local Fresh Market seafood department will suffice.
July 2015
NOT JUST ANY FRIDAY!
Well, I had already written my column for this issue and sent it to my editor. The topic was the upcoming marriage equality opinion from the Supreme Court. I was hopeful but not certain. And I expected to add a short addendum to the column at press time, with whatever the news turned out to be.
Hah! WE WON!!! Holy heck!!! Unexpected??? I don’t know. Great??? You bet!!!
I just ripped up that original column with its hedging, guarded hopes. The Supremes, at least five of them, handed us a victory. I wish all of you readers could have been at the CAMP Rehoboth Community Center for the reveal. This was our reality show.
A group of us stood around Mark Purpura’s laptop computer; you may know, or know of, Mark. He is the crackerjack attorney who wrote the marvelous marriage equality bill for the state of Delaware. We stared at the small screen.
We all suspected this would be the morning for the decision, coming on the anniversary of the earlier Edie Windsor decision. That decision brought marriage equality to states with civil union legislation. This one could bring marriage equality to all 50 states.
Mark stared at his laptop, said. “Here it is,” and started to read aloud, then bingo, he stopped in his tracks, looked up and said, quietly, “We won.”
For a minute there was no sound in the room. We just stared at Mark and his computer in stunned silence. Then came the whoops, high fives, cheers, and more. “So somebody get the champagne,” said a lone voice. It was, after all, 10:05 a.m. Why not?!
Frankly, what happened next was kind of weird. Executive Director Steve and Board President Murray wandered around between the front office and the Community Center room, while we all stared at our cell phones, with more info coming in from posts. There was no radio or TV at CAMP since the streaming signal was weak. In fact, it was oddly quiet for such a joyous moment.
It was as if time were suspended and, after gallons of ink championing marriage equality, hours of testimony, years of marches, decades of disappointments and discrimination, we were just stunned into silence by this enormous victory.
“I can’t believe it!”
“I never thought I’d see this in my lifetime.”
“For pity’s sake somebody put some disco music on!”
And we did. And people started filtering in. We posed for pictures on the CAMP porch, amid balloons and bunting, and thumbs up and smiles a mile wide. Cars passed by and honked, gay folks swarmed the street, straight folks cheered us and blew kisses. It was a true holy crap moment.
Finally we got a TV signal and watched President Obama’s moving statement. Plans were made for later that afternoon or happy hour or weekend celebrations. I sat down a minute and thought this through. My birthday is three days away. What a birthday present. And although I will be older than dirt on this coming Monday, it amazes me that we are at this juncture at all in my lifetime.
For half my current years (67 if you are counting) it seemed an outright joke and impossibility. At 33 (and a half), I was about to meet my future wife, although there was no hope of using the word wife in any context except for a laugh. We were still sneaking into dingy gay bars in terrible neighborhoods and making up fake boyfriends for work colleagues. (Okay, I never really did that, but I wasn’t honest, either.)
At three-quarters of my current lifetime, age 50 or so, we were out and proud and marching and being activists, but marriage equality wasn’t even on the table. It still seemed the impossible dream, as simple anti-discrimination bills were failing to gain headway.
One year later, by the way, I moved to Rehoboth full-time, and was able to enjoy the freedom of our gay friendly bubble here on the coast. But we still had absolutely no legal protections or hospital visitation rights, much less any glimmer of potential marriage equality.
As the issue started to snowball in the last (if you are still doing math here) 17 years, Delaware provided hard-fought anti-discrimination protection, then the antiseptic-sounding civil union law, then, gloriously, the full enchilada of marriage equality. Delaware? We were thrilled and pretty darn surprised.
The hard work by our Governor Jack Markell, our local representatives, Equality Delaware and so many more, made the seemingly impossible a reality for our state. And now, here we are, with countrywide marriage rights.
It’s fabulous news; it makes a huge difference in many lives and seems the ultimate victory for my 30 years of wishing, hoping, marching, writing, and talking. Fantastic as it is, we all must remember that four Supreme Court judges and an awful lot of Americans think this was a terribly wrong decision.
Implementation may not be smooth. Will we need National Guard troops to ensure marriages can take place in certain states? Will there be violence? What about repercussions? I hope not. But we must be prepared to face whatever comes our way as we see the new law of the land implemented.
There’s still work to do. But we can leave that for later! Today, tonight, this last Pride weekend of the month is time to celebrate. I’m heading directly to my favorite watering hole to lift a toast to the fabulous five: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Stephen G. Breyer, and Justice Elena Kagan. You are my heroes.
Oh, and let’s not forget Edie Windsor, the courageous woman my dog Windsor is named after, who brought the first marriage equality lawsuit to the Supreme Court and won—that ruling made marriage equality the law of the land in states that had already approved civil unions and gay marriage. Now we can add the name James Obergefell to the hero list, as he is the victor in this current Supreme Court ruling making marriage equality the law of the land in every state in the union.
Gee, good thing we got the dog back in 2014 and named him for Edie. If we had waited until now, his name might have been Obergefell. Try that at the dog park.
And happy birthday to me. Best gift ever.
July 2015
PADDLING: EXTREME UPSTREAM!
As you know, I absolutely love kayaking except for those two aforementioned things: getting in and getting out.
It continues to be a problem. Not that it deters me, as you’ve read.
So, a couple of weeks ago it was a brand-new adventure. I accompanied two friends on a kayak ride on Delaware Bay. The rental boats awaited us off a dock, two feet below in the water. It took a platoon of people to hold the kayak up against the pier while I fell into it. “UBE” . . . ugly but effective.
We paddled up the canal, a gentle breeze blowing atop glassy, waveless water. Lovely. Perfect. Easy. I did notice that only one side of my kayak paddle had that little rubber gasket ring above the blade to keep water from dripping down on me. With each stroke, water cascaded directly into Trafalgar Square. It was like throwing cold water on an idea I wasn’t even having.
As we traveled the canal and waved at other boaters, one jerk on a personal watercraft came flying by, ignoring the No Wake sign and we were almost swamped. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a small crab in the bottom of my boat.
The sun dried us off as we enjoyed the scenery, then stopped for lunch. We’d decided not to dine at a waterside restaurant as low tide docking would require ejecting myself from the kayak butt hole and hiring a crane to raise me the six feet up to the pier. So, to avoid all that and the headlines it might have produced, we packed peanut butter and jelly. I ate, one hand clutching the sandwich and the other arm hugging an adjacent wooden piling so I wouldn’t float off toward Philadelphia.
It was after lunch the real trouble started. As we rounded the mouth of the canal into Delaware Bay, the wind and waves cranked up. Paddling harder but making less forward progress, we could see our final beach destination in the distance. It was supposed to take about an hour to get there.
We paddled mightily, barely making headway. Pretty soon I started to hear loud grunts on each downstroke, making me think Monica Seles was sneaking up behind me. I was astounded to discover the grunter was me. And the soundtrack didn’t even help me get ahead.
As I stared at the shore, it was clear that the same brown-shingled cottage, with the same wafting rainbow flag, was staying constant in my field of vision no matter how furiously I paddled. No headway at all.
Like the Last of the Mohicans, we paddled our boats with gusto, staying in place, or worse, when we stopped for a breath, going backward. Eventually, we crept forward enough to see different scenery. I think we were in front of the next property for forty minutes, paddling and cursing. Finally, the wind died down a bit and we could inch along towards our beach destination. My arms felt like a rubber Gumby, my ass was asleep, and I was sitting in so much dripped water it was a complimentary sitz bath.
Our simple one-hour kayak trip became the quintessential three-hour tour. If I felt like Ginger or Mary Ann when I started, by the time I hit the beach I was Thurston Howell III. At his wake. So much for a restful day on the water.
But I have to admit, despite the stress I enjoyed it. It’s one of the very few things, perhaps the only thing, classified as a sport where I can participate. As my pals hauled me out of my kayak, I staggered up the beach to the parking lot and wondered how I could go about inventing some kind of spring-loaded seat cushion to, as Joe Cocker sang, “lift me up where I belong.”
And into the cocktail lounge adjacent to the pier. If golf has its Nineteenth Hole, shouldn’t paddling have its Next Wave? I may be onto something delicious . . .
July 2015
THE GREAT UNWASHED
Readers know I love New Orleans. Well, we just got back from four weird days there, where Murphy’s Law ran amok. It was still a blast, mind you, but it had its challenges.
First, as we flew toward Louisiana, I read a Facebook post from friends down there. Upstream runoff from the great Mississippi River was cascading downstream at an alarming rate. Folks worried that the river would crest over flood stage—and you know what a mess that can be in New Orleans.
On our landing approach, we flew low over some of the canals, and I strained to see if the levees looked stressed. I was stressed, but the levees looked fine. It turned out that while we were in our airport cab, the river crested four inches below panic stage and we could move on to the next crisis.
Arriving at our hotel in 97-degree weather (they give the lesbian conferences July in Louisiana) there was nothing we wanted more than a tall icy cocktail, probably a signature Hurricane. Stopping by our room to unload luggage we were greeted by an urgent hotel advisory: The Sewerage and Water Board issued a Boil Water Order. A power outage at the water plant rendered the entire NOLA water supply unsafe for drinking, tooth-brushing, and showering. Even showering?
While I wanted a shower, and would have liked to brush my teeth, the real significance of this meant no ice. Here I was in the city where walking around with a Hurricane or other such cocktail was practically mandatory, and there would be no ice. In effect, it became a Boil Water and Drink Beer Order.
So we did, enjoying our red beans and rice, gumbo, oysters, and other celebratory New Orleans menu items. The restaurants were all frustrated, as there could be no sodas, and pretty much no alcoholic drinks served at all, unless you wanted your Scotch neat. Vodka neat is not a thing.
But frankly, after hoofing it around the French Quarter in the excruciatingly hot and humid weather, it was the shower that became mandatory. But, according to the local news, the consequences could be infection with a parasitic brain-eating amoeba—scientific name, Naegleria fowleri. It sounded very “fouleri,” all right.
So the hotel provided each room with bottled water for drinking, tooth-brushing, and dabbing one’s body. Grand.
That night I performed my reading in the ballroom at the hotel before a large audience of sweaty lesbians.
Talk about the great unwashed. I might as well have been performing in the woods at the Michigan Womyns Music Festival. I joked that the show title should have been changed from 50 Shades of Fay to 50 Whiffs of Fay.
But we survived. I got a standing ovation, although the crowd might just have been standing to air themselves out. Then we all went and had more beer.
The writer’s conference itself was magical. Our keynote speaker was Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard out of Carolina and other amazing books. Her riveting speech had tales of surviving and thriving at the very dawn of the feminist revolution—and what we, as women, lesbian women specifically, faced and continue to face by way of roadblocks and challenges.
For me, the thrill was sitting next to Ms. Allison at dinner the night before. She was as funny and insightful over shrimp and grits as she was talking to the throngs.
