Good-bye July

I'm stunned and a little embarrassed that I never made it back during July to write more in the blog. It's not that I wasn't doing anything worth writing about: we drove to Winnemucca to meet The New Nephew, Jon, visit with the rest of the family, and then on to Lake Tahoe, California side, to get married. Then we enjoyed the Marital Bliss Road Trip back with a stop in Missoula.

Perhaps I'll detail it more later, but for now I just have to say how incredibly grateful and humbled I am at the amount of congratulations and cheers we've received since we decided to drive to California and make our marriage legal. We've been toasted and cheered and received so many congratulations that it's left me at times overwhelmed and humbled to the point of silence. It's incredibly moving that so many people around us understand why it's so important for us to have this legal right. Why it shouldn't be taken for granted by anyone and should be available to all of us.

I never would have expected that the words "by the power vested in me by the state of California" would have such an impact. But they did, and when Christa spoke them we sobbed. Me, my lovely Gabi, our friends Paul and Jennie, and Christa too. We all sobbed. It was so powerful. Such a simple thing that so many straight couples get to take for granted...

So, we're back. The honeymoon is over and I'm back to work and Gabi is back to lesson planning ~ school starts in three weeks.

Oh, and one other thing: by pure dumb luck we arrived in Missoula at the same time that Ani DiFranco was there on tour. So we were able to see her in concert at the historic Wilma Theater in downtown Missoula (when I went to school there, I used to go see old black and white classics at the Wilma's little theater... one of my favorite places in town). Seats were general admission, so we got there early enough to find places in the center of the seventh row. We could see her sweat. She was, simply put, awesome, and it was great to sing out, with all the rest of the audience, every word for her canon classics like "Gravel," "Swan Dive," and "32 Flavors." My only disappointment was that she didn't sing "Pixie," one of my favorites and one of her most underrated songs. Still. Bliss. And no better place for two dykely newlyweds to hold hands and dance.